Cameroon joins PEFC

The Cameroonian Association of the Pan African Forestry Certification (PAFC Cameroon) was unanimously accepted as the new member of the PEFC Council for Cameroon. Cameroon is the second member country from Africa after Gabon and its membership raises the number of PEFC member countries to 33.

Following an initial application by PAFC Cameroon, the PEFC Council General Assembly recently agreed that subject to certain minor clarifications its membership would be accepted. With full submission of the remaining documentation and subsequent verification by and postal ballot of the Board of Directors, membership by PAFC Cameroon has now been confirmed.

"PAFC Cameroon is delighted to be accepted as a member of the PEFC Council and looks forward to working with our partners and colleagues towards developing our own forest certification system. We aim to develop, promote and implement a forest certification system that is adapted to Cameroon and accepted under the umbrella of PEFC - the largest forest certification system in the world," stated Mrs Christine Anjembe Nkene, Chairwoman of PAFC Cameroon.

"We are pleased at PAFC Cameroon's commitment to sustainable forest management and to working with the PEFC Council," said Mr Ben Gunneberg, Secretary General of the PEFC Council. He added that "While there is a great deal of work to be done beforehand, we look forward to the submission of the Cameroon system for PEFC endorsement and we will work with our new member towards that goal."

For more information please contact:
PAFC Cameroon
Mrs Christine Anjembe Nkene
Chairwoman
P.O. Box 4975 Yaounde
Cameroon
Tel: + 237 99 81 00 17
Fax: +237 22 20 55 20
Email: kenskiki@yahoo.fr

PEFC Council
Mr Ben Gunneberg
Secretary General
17, rue des Girondins
L-1626 Luxembourg
Tel: +352 26 25 90 59
Fax: +352 26 25 92 58
Email: info@pefc.org

Editor Notes

PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes)
PEFC is a framework for the mutual recognition of national forest certification systems that have been developed based on internationally recognised requirements for sustainable forest management. Since its launch in 1999, PEFC has become the largest forest certification umbrella organisation covering national systems from all over the world, delivering hundreds of millions of tonnes of wood to the processing industry and then onto the market place from currently over 200 million hectares of certified forests. This is an area which is larger than the combined forest area of the European Union member states. PEFC has strong grass roots support from many stakeholders including the forestry sector, governments, trade associations, trade unions and non-governmental organisations.

Cameroon
Cameroon has a forest cover of 21 Mio ha which represents 46% of its total land area. Nearly half of the forests (49%) are conservation forests, 29% are production forests, and 18% are multiple purpose forests, the rest being protection and social services forests. All the Cameroonian forests are publicly owned forests. Cameroon has a very high biological diversity due to the microcosm of climates and ecosystems, from the tropical moist forest with an equatorial climate in the south to the dry steppes of the Sahel in the north.