Essor des demandes publiques et privees camerounaises en sciages d'origine legale

Cameroon has integrated its domestic market into the VPA signed with the EU and therefore must ultimately ensure the legality of the products traded there. This is hardly the case today since about ¾ of the sawn timber purchased in the urban markets of Yaoundé, Douala and Bertoua are of informal origin, as studies by CIFOR and its partners have shown. The informal sector is now firmly established and provides significant pecuniary benefits to small producers, but also to local communities and to many agents of the decentralized administration. It will be difficult to promote legal sawn timber  if most actors are acting solely on the supply of informal sawn timber. 

The hypothesis of this project is that a change in domestic demands in favor of sawnwood of legal origin will be a major factor in convincing producers to embark on the path of legality in order to meet these new demands. This project contributes to a sustainable debate on the promotion of legal sawn timber in the domestic market in Cameroon, in particular by strengthening the MIB initiative. Beyond this, as this theme is common to all the countries of Central Africa, many lessons learned from this project aree useful for formalizing the production and trade of artisanal sawnwood in the Congo Basin.