General mission:
To contribute to a better application and enforcement of
norms in forest management and climatic prediction in Africa
in general and Cameroon in
particular.
Strategic
choices
a) Rationale:
- CEW recognises
the need for a global approach to environmental issues. But
it strongly believes that in a context of poverty, a better
environmental management will be enhanced if problems are
tackled from a double perspective: Critical situations and
critical areas.
- To CEW, a critical situation implies
that natural resources or life qualities are permanently
under threat due to socio-economic constraints or a poor
enforcement of existing laws and regulations. These result
to a large scale of environmental degradation and law
violation. Cases of law implementation are exceptional. The
reasons for the existence of these laws are then
questionable.
- A critical area would be an ecological
fragile zone where risks of degradation of natural resources
are high due mainly to natural conditions. Human
intervention is very likely to generate irreversible
disturbances. While signs of degradation can be clearly
observed, no specific law or regulation exists.
b) Elements of global
strategy:
- Highlight problems by conducting
or encouraging research on critical situations and within
critical areas;
- Use research output to sensitise on the
characteristics of the problems, on relevant laws and on the
need to act or react.
- Design and implement specific
projects aiming at solving the problems which have been
identified.
- Monitor and Assess the efficiency of the
project to contribute to solving the problems.
c) As an Observatory, the technical
chain of operations embodies :
- Elaboration
of indicators and methodologies;
- Data collection and
storage in database;
- Analysis and modelling through
GIS;
- Data dissemination to target groups;
- Support
target groups in the use of the products;
- Assessment or
evaluation.
d) Fields of
activities:
- Monitoring of logging using
Geographic Information System (GIS);
- Fight against
poaching;
- GIS support to community forest development
and training;
- Estimation of rainfall through satellite
; study of climatic variation with its effects on human
activities.
