Many activities despite major challenges

FSC and PAFC recertification audits for forestry management and for chain of custody (CoC) were carried out successfully at our two sites in Bambidie and Owendo. The CoC audit was performed online due to travel restrictions, which was a particular challenge for both our team and the auditors. With this continued high level and our dual certification, we remain the pioneering company in sustainable forest management in the tropics.

In addition to our certification activities, our projects in the past year included the following:

• At the beginning of the school year, we carried out another school supplies campaign. School supplies procured in large quantities were given to the children of our employees at reduced prices, enabling them to start school successfully.
• In cooperation with the ministry responsible for forestry and the NGO Conservation Justice, a joint wildlife protection project was implemented. Forestry ministry employees stationed in Bambidie regularly patrol our forest to prevent poaching and to protect wildlife. The project has already had considerable success, underscoring the importance of this partnership.
• The launch of our new sawmill created 50 new jobs. To accommodate this increase, we have also expanded the infrastructure in Bambidie and built a new neighbourhood with 50 homes for these employees and their families in our camp. We have also enlarged our health clinic and built additional classrooms for the primary school and kindergarten, as well as homes for additional teachers.
• The P3FAC-AFRITIMB research project was continued. The goal of this project is to study forest dynamics in the Congo Basin and to better understand those dynamics in the context of sustainable forest management. In order to provide researchers with reliable reference data, we have excluded one zone from forest management for this purpose. We also actively supported more than 10 other research projects.
• Again in 2020, permanent test areas also provided data to the AfriTRON and RAINFOR projects, which research forest dynamics and forests as carbon reservoirs at the global level.
• We had the pleasure of welcoming a delegation from the ministry responsible for forestry, which is working on implementation of a nationwide project to reduce carbon emissions and preserve carbon reservoirs in the forest. Due to our experience in resource-preserving forest management, Precious Woods-CEB was chosen to test the new system for the first time.
• Because of the pandemic, external training had to be reduced to a minimum. Nevertheless, we were able to conduct numerous training sessions for our logging teams with internal experts. The goal is to perfect the knowledge and skills of our employees in reduced impact logging.
• The cultural offerings and activities of the Centre Culturel were also impaired, but some activities could still be carried out. For example, volunteers made a variety of cloth face masks for our employees.