Decision 38 COM 7B.86

Dja Wildlife Reserve (Cameroon) (N 407)

The World Heritage Committee,

1. Having examined Document WHC-14/38.COM/7B.Add,
2. Recalling Decision 37 COM 7B.1, adopted at its 37th session (Phnom Penh, 2013),
3. Takes note with satisfaction of the efforts of the State Party to increase staff and the operational budget and the investment in the Conservation Service of the property, and encourages the State Party to continue and further strengthen its support;
4. Notes with concern that to date, the State Party has not yet fulfilled all the conditions set out by the Committee in its Decision 36 COM 7B.1, and in particular that no concrete measure appears to have been taken to reduce the direct and indirect impacts of the Mekin dam and the industrial plantation of Sud Hevea Cameroun to the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the property;
5. Commends the commitment of the State Party in carrying out a Strategic Environmental and Social Study (SESS) of all the current and future projects around the property and requests the State Party to undertake this SESS without delay and to submit it to the World Heritage Centre in accordance with Paragraph 172 of the Operational Guidelines;
6. Expresses its utmost concern regarding continued deforestation and increase in poaching and also requests the State Party and its partners to strengthen their support to the Conservation Service of the property to reverse this tendency;
7. Urges the State Party to:
   1. prevent any start-up of mining work until an Environmental and Social Impact Study (ESIS) has been carried out, in conformity with IUCN’s World Heritage advice note on Environmental Impact Assessments,
   2. define, in consultation with the Sud Hevea Cameroun Company, adequate measures to be undertaken to foresee, mitigate and compensate the negative effects of the agricultural exploitation project of Sud Hevea and other commercial species to the OUV of the property,
   3. implement adequate urgent measures to mitigate the direct and indirect impacts on the OUV of the property and submit them to the World Heritage Centre for examination by IUCN before the filling up of the Mekin dam reservoir;
8. Encourages the State Party to ensure significant progress by the end of 2014 regarding all of the above-mentioned recommendations and to envisage an exhaustive assessment of this property for the Committee’s next session;
9. Urges the State Party to clarify whether the boundaries of the Reserve as inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1987 have been modified and recalls that any such modification to the boundaries must be referred to the Committee, in conformity with Paragraphs 163-165 of the Operational Guidelines, and should avoid any negative impact on the OUV of the property and its protection;
10. Further requests the State Party to submit to the World Heritage Centre, by 1 February 2015, a detailed report, including a 1-page executive summary, on the state of conservation of the property, and more particularly on progress accomplished in further reducing the threats to the OUV of the property, for examination by the World Heritage Committee at its 39th session in 2015, with a view to considering in the case if significant progress has not been accomplished concerning all the conditions enumerated in Decision 36 COM 7B.1, as well as the new requests above, the possible inscription of the property on the List of World Heritage in Danger.