In recent years, a stream of reports published by the Cameroonian Government, the World Bank, Global Forest Watch (World Resources Institute) and environmental organisations such as WWF and Greenpeace have revealed the widespread nature of illegal activities within Cameroon’s forest products industry. Overall, it is estimated that as much as 90 percent of logs and timber produced in Cameroon are illegal in some way.
Of all the forest products companies logging and/or trading illegally in Cameroon, one of the largest, and certainly one of the most notorious, is Société Forestière Hazim (SFH), a Lebanese owned company with a serious record of violating forestry laws, creating social conflicts and logging without regard for its environmental impact. SFH has been repeatedly fined for its anarchic logging practices, yet the company continues to flagrantly ignore the law, logging outside legally defined boundaries of its own – and others’ – logging concessions.
In light of SFH’s consistently destructive, unlawful and unethical forest practices, Greenpeace is calling on governments and the forest products industry worldwide to stop their role in supporting this company’s relentless destruction of Africa’s remaining ancient forests by stopping all imports of SFH’s timber into national ports.
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Learn more about Greenpeace’s forest campaigns here.
