Forest: Minister Jules Doret Ndongo reveals the existence of a network for laundering illegally expl

• Date de Publication : 2021-04-28

This practice wastes the country not only significant forest and wildlife resources, but also government revenues. Cameroonian Minister of Forests and Wildlife, Jules Doret Ndongo, in correspondence to his staff in the 10 regions, reveals the existence of a network for laundering illegally logged timber. This traffic is carried out through the falsification of secure administrative documents. “I have seen that some rogue economic operators use counterfeit secure documents (consignment notes and DF10 worksite book) to launder illegally exploited wood, knowing that some of your employees initial and sign the consignment notes blank, and often without referring to the transmission forms accompanying the said documents, ”wrote the minister to the regional delegates of his ministerial department. According to this member of the government, this practice wastes the country not only of important forest and wildlife resources. But also government revenue. In order to uproot this phenomenon, Jules Doret Ndongo recommends that his collaborators be extra vigilant when verifying the documents accompanying the shipments of timber cut on the national territory. The case of Vietnamese foresters In a report published in 2020 and entitled "stolen wood , soiled temples: the harmful consequences of the timber trade between Cameroon and Vietnam on the Cameroonian populations and forests ”, two NGOs reveal that Vietnamese foresters in Cameroon stand out in“ money laundering operations covered by paperwork ”. So to speak, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and the Center for Environment and Development (CED) argue that “in order to meet the demands of the Vietnamese authorities, several of the companies that trade in timber have focused their efforts on obtaining Cameroonian documents, disregarding the real origin of the wood placed on the Vietnamese market ”. To support this thesis, the two NGOs say that “an official of Dai Loi Trading Co. Ltd (…), the largest Vietnamese company established in Cameroon, and also one of the three largest importers of wood in Vietnam, declared that he couldn't care less about the origin of the wood it puts on the Vietnamese market, even if this wood were to come from a terrorist group, provided that the “right documents” are provided ”.