For the contractors of major foreign companies who are more used to estimating the volume of trees and their commercial value than plunging into the details of forest ecology, the contribution of researchers from the Gembloux Laboratory is precious. They advise them on the fauna and flora inventories imposed by the FSC. They assist them in drawing up forest management plans. They act as a scientific safeguard for forestry regeneration programmes.  Sometimes they go as far as suggesting changes to regulations governing this sector, one of the country's biggest in terms of exports. In exchange for these contributions, the students of Gembloux have a special field of study and experimentation and direct contact, in real working conditions, with teams that are up to their necks in the sustainable exploitation of timber resources (read the interview with Professor Doucet). So every year, Jean-Louis Doucet and his colleagues travel to Cameroon, Gabon, Congo- Brazzaville or the Central African Republic - and, increasingly to the Democratic Republic of Congo - to follow their students and supervise forestry work: sylvicultural tests, plantations, in-depth ecological studies, the identification of high conservation value forests, community forestry and so on. Thousands of kilometres of roads and tracks to be travelled and working conditions that are not always easy…

Traps and Snares

First of all there is poaching, a real scourge in these remote regions, particularly in Cameroon. It is a real daily challenge for the scant monitoring services and the operators. Indeed, if the operators want to hang onto the key that opens the door of ecological markets - FSC certification - they must ensure the protection of gorillas, chimpanzees, mongooses and other duikers. The threat is two-fold: Benefiting from the roads and tracks created to move timber to sawmills and ports, poachers in motor vehicles criss-cross the forest and, thanks to a myriad of local ties, shamelessly exploit anything that moves. As for forestry workers in these poor and remote regions, sometimes they are also tempted to supplement their income by placing snares or shooting one or two mammals that they only have to sell on to a more or less formal network of retailers.



To attempt to limit poaching, Pallisco organises the sale of meat and fish - at cost price - to its workers and their families. It thus provides them with the essential dose of proteins for their diet:  a precious thing in these bush communities. The French company also uses the services of a security company which monitors the comings and goings of all trucks and pedestrians crossing the boundaries of its forest concessions. Although traditional hunting is tolerated, the sale of bush meat is banned. It is subject to a particular crackdown if the species are protected by law. From time to time, during their movements in the forest, at the side of the tracks the Gembloux researchers come face to face with groups of poachers caught in the act or evicted from their clandestine camps by the guards, in cooperation with the Department for Forests. In their game bag, a hotchpotch of dried, smoked or still bloody meat which will usually be confiscated and will not end up in the semi-clandestine stalls of Mindourou, Yaoundé or Douala. Better for the forest? Certainly. But sometimes these actions to stamp out poaching backfire on researchers. Hence, one fine day the nursery or plantation is discovered to have been mysteriously vandalised...