History

• Ventes de coupe⁹

In all, 103 ventes de coupe were to be allocated in 1999, although less than one-half were actually distributed. ¹⁰ Eighty-five were placed on the auction block in January 1999,¹¹and in October 1999¹² the government announced that 54 ventes de coupe had been allocated. Subsequently, seven were canceled because the bidding companies were unable to meet their financial obligations or failed to sign the final documents (see Table 1). Forty-seven ventes de coupe were therefore successfully allocated in 1999, leaving 56 ¹³ ventes de coupe from 1999 to be allocated in 2000 (see Figure 1). They were placed on the auction block in October 2000 (see Table 2).

Delays and confusion concerning the next ^c allocation of ventes de coupe may be the result of the preparation of a new arrêté¹⁴ that grants preemption privileges to community forest projects when they overlap with ventes de coupe.¹⁵

• Unités Forestières d'Aménagement (UFAs)

(a) 1996-97: The first round of UFA allocations

In 1996, seven UFAs were allocated through a discretionary process, without being subjected to competitive bidding. In 1997, 26 UFAs were placed on the auction block for Cameroon's first competitive concession allocation, but the process was undermined by several irregularities. Among the 26, 2 were not allocated and one was ultimately revoked. Prior to June 2000, then, 30 UFAs with temporary logging contracts were scheduled to expire at the end of 2000. According to sources within the Ministry of the Environment and Forests (MINEF), several of them will probably not be renewed for a final long-term contract because many of the companies holding these UFAs failed to meet stipulations spelled out in their contracts.

(b) June 2000: The second round of UFA allocations

The Ministry of the Environment and Forests planned to allocate the following areas over the next three years, as spelled out in the 1999 planning document, Planification de l'Attribution des Titres d’Éxploitation Forestière:¹⁶

• For 2000-2001, 40 UFAs ¹⁷ covering 2,881,751 hectares, including 36 assiettes de coupe ^d covering 90,000 hectares, with a potential production of 1,350,000 m³ of wood per year.

• For 2001-2002, 13 UFAs covering 900,091 hectares, including 9 assiettes de coupe covering 22,500 hectares, with a potential production of 337,500 m³ of wood per year.

• For 2002-2003, 4 UFAs covering 204,662 hectares, including 4 assiettes de coupe covering 10,000 hectares, with a potential production of 150,000 m³ of wood per year.

The second round of UFA allocations was originally announced in December 1999. ¹⁸ Various procedural problems ^e delayed the start of the selection process until June 2000. Technical analysis of the bids was carried out until July. The financial bids opening session was public and the final results (see Table 3) were published by the Government in mid July 2000. An independent observer ¹⁹ was appointed to document this allocation process. He reported that despite great improvements since 1997, the June 2000 UFA allocation suffered from:

• Insufficient data to assess the technical and other qualifications of bidding companies.

• Unresolved questions about the eligibility of bidding companies with a track record of management violations.

• Inconsistent, conflicting, and/or false documentation provided by bidders.

• Possible leaks on bidding status for some UFAs.²⁰

It should be noted that the June 2000 auction and the planned September 2000 auction differed from the plan set out in the original Plannification de l’Attribution des Titres d’Exploitation Forestière in terms of which and how many UFAs were to be allocated in 1999-2000.²¹ But the World Bank, which has been influential by helping Cameroon implement its new forest policy through structural adjustment lending, claims that these irregularities are insignificant so long as the overall areas allocated on a yearly basis fall within the range of the document's plans, which they do so far. 

The UFAs originally set out to be allocated in 1999-2000 were not selected to take into account the vulnerability of unallocated forestland. The June 2000 UFA auction attempted to rectify this situation by allocating UFAs that were easily accessible and, therefore, were at risk from illegal logging.²²

(c) Forthcoming: The third round of UFA allocations

In July 2000, the Ministry also announced that 21 new UFAs were available for allocation (see Table 4). This offer is open to all logging companies registered in Cameroon. The minimum bidding price is at 1,000 CFA francs per hectare. Applications, including a financial and technical proposal, were originally due by September 15, 2000,²³ but as of December 2000, this auction had been postponed as a result of the Government's decision to fine-tune the technical criteria in light of the June 2000 allocation.²⁴

Community forests are part of the nonpermanent forest domain^f and are established through a management contract between the local community and MINEF. Under the terms of this contract, MINEF offers its technical expertise to help manage the forest resources in the interest of the community. This agreement is valid for 5 years and may be renewed.²⁵

Requesting and obtaining a community forest may be a long and complex process, especially for distant rural communities that are often unfamiliar with urban bureaucratic procedures. In short, local communities must submit a proposal to MINEF. Once it has been accepted, a management plan must be elaborated and a contract is then signed. To date, MINEF has granted 2 community forests in 1997 and another 5 in 2000 ²⁶ (see Table 5) and has received proposals for an additional 74. 

Thirteen of these proposals are likely to be approved soon, 39 are reserved for communities finishing their management plans, 11 proposals are incomplete, and 11 were rejected because they were located in the permanent forest domain, where community forests are not permitted.²⁷ It should be noted that there are no deadlines to request community forests and the numbers evolve constantly.

Rules for allocation

The allocation of ventes de coupe and UFAs is determined by a governmental body called the commission interministerielle d'attribution des concessions forestières. It includes representatives from different ministries (e.g., Environment and Forests, Economy and Finance), specific departments of the Ministry of the Environment and Forests, unions, experts called on an individual basis, and an independent observer. The selection criteria and procedures are ruled by Arrêté 0293/MINEF dated March 21, 2000 (see Annex 1). These criteria considered the following: investments, financial capacity, technical capacity, and respect for both prior commitments and the environmental legislation. A technical score and a financial score were given. The financial score was calculated by the following formula: financial bid x 100 / highest financial bid offered for that particular UFA or vente de coupe.²⁸

• Ventes de coupe

Technical scores were awarded out of a possible total of 120 points, and scores above 72 were required to qualify for the bidding process. The minimum bidding price was set at 2,500 CFA francs per hectare. The following formula was used to determine the winner for each vente de coupe: (technical score x 0.2) + (financial score x 0.8).²⁹

The next allocation of ventes de coupe is open to all logging companies registered in Cameroon (in theory, some earlier allocations were to be reserved for Cameroonian nationals). The minimum bidding price is 2,500 CFA francs per hectare. According to MINEF, the selection scoring system is to be harmonized to match that of the UFAs.³⁰

• Unités Forestières d'Aménagement

Technical notes were scored out of a possible 100, a score of 55 or below resulting in disqualification (see Annex 1 for details on technical criteria).

In the past, companies were required to pay only a small fraction of their financial offers, but this time the government required them to pay their full offers within the first year. As an accompanying measure, the base price for the financial bid was reduced from 1,500 CFA francs per hectare to 1,000 CFA francs per hectare. The following formula was then used to determine the winner of the bidding process for each UFA: (technical score x 0.3) + (financial score x 0.7).³¹ The World Bank favors the 3:7 ratio for the technical and financial score although reportedly the government and the private sector would prefer a more balanced ratio whereby technical scores factor more heavily.³²

The companies awarded UFAs had 45 days to pay the bidding price, but the deadline was extended at the request of bidders to September 30.³³ If companies failed to meet this deadline, the concession was to be awarded to the second company on the bidding list.