Four NGOs that are beneficiaries of conservation funds from Man & Nature have agreed to form a business synergy with the Silver Back Company of ERuDeF. The NGOs are ready to market products including echinops gigantus, moabi oil, Oku white honey, mondia whitei and other non-timber forest products (NTFPs).
By Tendongzi Peter Asong
The NGOs took the resolution during a conference with AFD and Man & Nature on September 27, 2015 in Yaounde.
Already Silver Back as a business model deals with the production and commercialization of palm oil as the star product. Some other related products are honey, echinops and mondia whitei. The company will share profits and dividends, search for market outlets and provide quality products.
The Director of TF-RD, Epanda Manfred, emphasized that the business chain has to be active and revenue gotten ploughed back to promote livelihood projects in specific communities.
“With the advancement of Silver Back in business, it is capable of tracing market ventures and sale of products in preferential markets,” said Epanda.
The representative of CAMGEW, Wisiy Emmanuel Binyuy, Environmental team leader, asserted that Silver Back is part of this project “and it is only logical that it is apt for business and commercialization of our products.”
According to Eric Belveau, representative of Man & Nature from France, the programs of MAN are manifesting greatly in Africa, so there is need to do business.
“Trustee or no trustee, we have to do business, and Silver Back with our technical expertise, the professional marketer, will greatly help us solve these problems,” said Eric Belveau.
In like manner, the Director of AFEBEN, held the view that Silver Back will be in charge of conditioning and commercialization as well as proposing fair prices for products while respecting uniformity in standards and the platform.
There were some arguments with respect to issues of litigations and differences between members of the platform.
As a result, the four NGOs accepted to meet again in Yaounde to clarify the status of Silver Back Company to play the role of a business model for the aforementioned NGOs.
The Silver Back Company (SCB) Ltd was created as a legal entity to manage the activities and operations of the Social Business Division of ERuDeF. The company is a special class of limited liability company in which the profits made are not for the interest of the shareholders but to further enhance conservation work within the geographic limits of the project.
The SBC Ltd is basically concerned with value addition to the activities of the non-profit work of ERuDeF after prolonged observation that the local population cannot, at the moment, efficiently manage the sustainable livelihood projects donated to them. In this way, the SBC Ltd will add value to various livelihood projects in collaboration with the local communities, market them and bring back the returns to the community for both development and conservation support. However, and apart from value addition to the conservation works of ERuDeF, the SBC Ltd has the power to do other forms of legally and environmentally accepted businesses.
SBC Ltd is dedicated to the promotion of sustainable economic development of indigenous communities in order to further long term biodiversity management in Cameroon. The SBC Ltd is the business division of ERuDeF whose sole aim is to generate normal profits through social businesses that will be re-invested in integrated conservation and development programmes in Cameroon. It also has as priority to do business locally and externally.
The overall objective of the SBC Ltd is to ensure support for the long term management of a system of protected areas in Cameroon beginning with the newly created TOFALA Hill Wildlife Sanctuary. In this way, the institution is looking forward to among other things, support long term conservation efforts through the capitalization of the Forest Protection Fund and a Trust Fund for ERuDeF, producing and commercializing standard and industrial-driven forest products by way of setting up small scale cottage industries for the production and marketing of basic commodities including forest products around conservation habitats.
