SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT OF CAMEROON FORESTS RESOURCES: PROVIDING TIMBER WASTE TO THE POOR POPULATIONS AS ALTERNATIVE SOURCE OF ENERGY

Cameroon is covered by about 20 million hectares of forests. Timber exploitation is the second source of external income after petroleum. Besides, Cameroon’s forest has several other functions. Yet the threat to the very existence and survival of this forest is rapidly increasing due to overexploitation by logging companies and for firewood. Despite its usefulness, a substantial volume of the wood felled by timber exploiters is abandoned as waste to rot. This waste can be used as firewood by households even for building and making of furniture by small-scale users like carpenters if they had access to it. This paper encourages the use of timber waste as an alternative to kerosene, which has become very expensive and unaffordable due to the general rise in the price of petroleum products in recent years. The overexploitation of forests can therefore be limited by putting the waste timber into use. It will go along to reduce freshly cut wood which is usually cut illegally and uncontrollably and which is a major source of depletion of forest resources. This project, once achieved will forever last because it will always generate revenue to the groups involve in the collection and the distribution of forest waste which will make money from sales even if they were to sell cheaper since the major cost is transportation and the waste wood is also cheap to obtain from the logging companies or even costless since they have less interest in it.

Abstract licence: CC BY

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