Forest Illegalities and Corruption in Cameroons Forest Sector. A Theoretical and Literature Review of Corruption with Regards to Forest Illegalities

Abstract

In the past decades illegal logging and related forest, activities have increasingly been a global concern, especially in forest products producer countries. This phenomenon has high rates in the Cameroon forest sector caused by poverty, poor Law enforcement, lack of transparency, conflicts, state ownership of majority of forested land, and in addition to these, its high rates of corruption. International NGOs such as the world bank, Department for International Development (DFID), and other unions such as EU have stepped in by providing financial aid and designing programs such as FLEGT and REDD+ to curtail these malpractices in Cameroon forest sector but still, it has remained a cause for concern. The objective of this paper is to find out why corruption has been an increasing phenomenon in the Cameroons forestry sector, and what has been the driving force behind this increase in corruption. In this paper, I made use of existing literature and also a corruption theoretical model by (Andvig & Moene, 1990) to explain this aspect of Corruption focussing on the incentive mechanisms in the model. It is established that poor law enforcement, lack of transparency, lack of information by the majority of forest actors, and poor governments have provided an avenue for high incentives to the corrupt actors especially the forestry officials and other people with Affluence. It is realized that corruption in this sector can be combated if there is strong law enforcement (severe Sanctions), and improvement in governance will go a long way to reduce the incentives of corrupt actors and consequently reduces the incidence of corruption.