Avoiding legislation on trade in forest products

Instead of implementing its law banning all rainforest log exports, the government of Cameroon in Africa has exempted the two tree species from which it makes the most money. The log export ban was a significant feature of Cameroon's 1994 forest policy designed in conjunction with The World Bank's environmental unit. The exemption of sapelli and ayous wood from a total log export ban makes a mockery of the policy's aims. These two hardwoods are the most plentiful in Cameroon's imperiled old growth rainforests. The continued trade in these species opens most of Cameroon's forests to the destructive commercial logging that the ban was intended to prevent.