Republic of Cameroon: Economic Partnership Agreement

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, who is an acknowledged expert on Africa. I shall address my comments to the trade deal with Cameroon. I declare my interest in the register as a trustee of the Thin Green Line, a charity devoted to the welfare of wildlife rangers worldwide—and, specifically in this case, in Cameroon. We have heard from other noble Lords about the concerns about human rights issues in Cameroon, and Her Majesty’s Government will no doubt ensure that those are raised at the highest level. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Bellingham said that he raised such issues in private in his distinguished career as Minister for Africa. I also agree with those noble Lords who believe that free trade should be used as a force for good.

I should like to raise something that I think the UK and other countries could be doing in the general area of trade that could reap benefits not just for these African countries but for our planet. It is important for any trade deal to recognise that Cameroon’s rainforest provides important ecosystem services to the world, and to ensure that it does not incentivise deforestation, something that my noble friend Lord Eccles made a historical reference to. Among those ecosystem services from which we all benefit but which none of us pays for is carbon sequestration and storage. The health of Cameroon’s forests and therefore the amount of carbon they sequester and store depends on keystone species such as primates and forest elephants, the latter now recognised as a separate species which is critically endangered, having lost 86% of its population over the past 31 years to the illegal ivory trade.

The International Monetary Fund last year published an estimate of the value of carbon sequestration attributable to each forest elephant as $1.75 million. Similar calculations must be done for other keystone species in other globally important ecosystems. Take apes, for example. Cameroon is home to two sub-species of chimpanzee and two of gorilla, the rarest kind of both apes being endemic to the fragmented forests on either side of the Nigeria-Cameroon border.

The conservation of Cross River gorillas, Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees and the surviving forest elephants with whom they share their habitat has been hampered in recent years by the serious civil unrest that we have been hearing about. Perhaps by recognising and paying for the ecosystem services that they provide us with, we could bring a conservation peace dividend to the people of this part of Cameroon, as well as reducing the loss of biodiversity and helping to prevent dangerous climate change. Until such payment systems are in place, it falls to charities such as the Thin Green Line Foundation and other members of the Ape Alliance to help local NGOs and community rangers protect these natural gardeners of the forest. These rangers have a precarious and very dangerous job, and we must support them in every way that we can.

Trade should be a positive force for good. I hope that Her Majesty’s Government will exert their considerable influence for not only human rights, which are incredibly important, but ecosystems and species, which are also very important and benefit us all. Let us hope that this particular agreement will accelerate this.