Vietnamese companies at the heart of illegal timber trade in Cameroon — report

Several Vietnamese companies operating in Cameroon are at the heart of a booming illegal timber trade between Cameroon and Vietnam, a new report has revealed

The joint report by the Cameroon-based Centre for Environment and Development (CED) and US-based Environment Investigation Agency (EIA) released on Tuesday exposes the negative impact of the illegal timber trade between Cameroon and Vietnam.

The report, "Tainted timber, tarnished temples", says the illegal timber trade has defiled many Vietnamese temples, where Cameroonian timber has become increasingly central to construction and renovation projects.

It includes evidence of illegal harvest, laundering schemes covered by paperwork, misdeclaration, and widespread violations of Cameroonian export and labour laws by a group of Vietnamese companies operating in the Central African country.

The report said multiple sources told EIA undercover investigators that large African tali (Erythrophleum ivorense) logs are now ubiquitous in Vietnam and have become the principal timber used for the construction and renovation of temples across the country.

It quotes an unnamed source as saying “tali is quite cheap, but it is durable. It can stay the same after hundreds of years. All the temples dated from five years back are built with African timber ... If you go to temples or communal temples, you’ll see that they are all made from tali.”

Managers from several trading companies in Cameroon, as well as from Vietnamese importers, told the investigators about the many illegalities that have tarnished this supply chain, including sourcing timber from vulnerable areas and, in some cases, even Unesco World Heritage Sites.

“The breadth of illegalities we uncovered is alarming, as are the negative consequences for the forests, the people, and the economy of Cameroon,” Lisa Handy, EIA’s Director of Forest Campaigns, is quoted as saying in the report. “Traffickers fundamentally undermine the longstanding efforts toward better forest governance in Cameroon, in particular under the Voluntary Partnership Agreement signed between Cameroon and the European Union.”

Samuel Nguiffo, executive secretary of CED, said the growth of the timber trade between Cameroon and Vietnam has not helped, but literally harmed, Cameroon.

“There are many opportunities in front of us to turn the tables and create a sector that helps our country, once we have stopped the wrongdoers and their enablers,” Nguiffo said, adding that a recent operation launched by the Cameroon Customs against illegal export of timber could be critical.

In recent years, the timber trade between the Congo Basin, including Cameroon and Vietnam, has exploded, linking the future of some of the world’s last remaining intact forests to one of the fastest growing Asian timber processing hubs.

In just a few years, Vietnam has become the second largest market for Cameroonian timber (after China), while Cameroon has become the largest supplier of tropical logs to Vietnam (accounting for 25 per cent of the logs imported between 2016 and 2019, in value), according to CED and EIA.

 However, the trade between Cameroon and Vietnam is also characterised by a considerable declaration gap. Between 2014 and 2017, exporters from Cameroon reported US$308 million less than importers in Vietnam. This indicates a massive potential loss of revenue for the Cameroonian State.