VII.36 Dja Faunal Reserve (Cameroon)
The Committee noted with concern that logging activities, carried out under commercial, as well as sustainable forestry schemes, are contributing to the growing biological isolation of the Reserve and are not welcome by the local people. An IUCN project is aiming to minimise the degree of the Reserve's isolation through the establishment of a buffer zone and a protected corridor linking Dja with adjacent forests. New logging roads facilitate access for hunters, and concessionaires have logged forests up to the boundary of the Reserve. Staff belonging to some foreign logging companies had threatened Reserve staff with violence when apprehended inside the Reserve for transporting poached wildlife. Conservationists in Cameroon have called for a moratorium on logging in the area and on the opening up of new access roads.
The Committee invited the State Party to study the extent to which sustainable and commercial forestry schemes around Dja are leading to the biological isolation of the reserve and to increased poaching of Dja's wildlife. The Committee supported the request for financial assistance, submitted by Cameroon, for organising an in-situ workshop, and encouraged the State Party to use the workshop as a forum for discussing, with representatives of donors sponsoring commercial and sustainable forestry activities, IUCN and others concerned, ways and means to minimise the possibility that such activities would isolate Dja from adjacent forests. The Committee invited the Centre and IUCN to report on the recommendations of the workshop, and advise the next session of the Bureau, in mid-1998, whether or not Dja needs to be declared as World Heritage in Danger.