Trading Margin

For traders in animal and plant products deep in the forests of Central Africa, it is not business as usual. This is especially true for those traders operating in the shadowy forests that blanket borderlines, where the rule of law yields to the law of the jungle. The trade in forest products brings many welcome economic benefits to remote communities. But, if allowed to continue in its current, poorly managed fashion, it may also bring many unwelcome environmental and social changes.

The Sangha River region is a case in point. A biodiversity hotspot crisscrossed by waterways, it is the meeting point of three national boundaries, of Cameroon, Central Africa Republic and Republic of Congo.

When the Congo government collapsed in the 1980s, Cameroon took over Congo's strategic role as the transit country for timber from the Central African Republic and northern Congo. What was once a wilderness home for elephants and chimpanzees, the Sangha River region is today alive with merchants and traders. With its forests traversed by dirt roads to Douala port in Cameroon, the region hosts a trade in timber, bush meat, palm oil, gold and diamonds that offers economic opportunity to people in all three nations.

"The products are mostly extracted from the tri-nation region and sold in Cameroon or exported from Douala," says Ruben de Koning, a researcher with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). "As this trade in natural products has increased, so has the cross-border trade in manufactured goods and processed foods, and in crops like plantains and cassava, to supply the small villages springing up in forest concessions."

Julius Tieguhong, also of CIFOR, says that while the rapid economic development of this once remote border zone has benefited many people, it has also brought significant concerns about the potential for conflict and environmental damage.

Moving goods from the trans-border region of Sangha to Douala port in Cameroon is costly and sometimes deadly. Often local officials levy unofficial fees on drivers and rugged forest tracks exert a heavy toll on trucks. Photo: Julius Tieguhong.

"The rush on marketable natural products can damage the natural resource base and does not always favor human populations," observes Tiehuhong. Conflict over diamond trading, hunting and commercial logging is also a problem, with locals complaining that outsiders plunder the region and offer nothing in return.

CIFOR and the Center for Education, Formation and Help, a local nongovernmental organization, have been examining policy solutions that might enhance cooperation among local governments in the three countries. Their studies find that bureaucracy and unfair regulations are hampering the region's legal cross-border activities.

According to de Koning, the legal trade in essential goods like crops, non-timber forest products and medicines should be liberalized, as capricious levies imposed by officials increase tensions and raise the prices of these everyday needs. How to deal with illegal cross-border activities is a more complex question. On the one hand, elephant hunting and the illegal firearms trade should be firmly suppressed by authorities. On the other hand, the problems caused by illegal gold and diamond mining could be better controlled if prohibitions against them were lifted.

Local governments from the three countries have recently begun looking more closely at the Sangha River region and considering appropriate deregulation polices. Trade liberalization and the illicit trade activities are also receiving extensive consideration. However, tackling this issues and implementing new policies is difficult for governments still struggling with the aftermath of recent war and internal instability.

De Koning nevertheless believes the region can be saved if the political will exists to build capacity in potentially politically sensitive official institutions.

"The military, the police, customs and game wardens," he enumerates, "they all need assistance in targeting and controlling illegal trade. At the same time, legal trade needs to become more efficient and productive for people, so development and stability can be established in Sangha."