The chainsaw supply chain in cameroon: the northern trail

Cameroon has the largest forest area in africa. industrial logging operations export timber products to Europe, america and asia, and informal chainsaw milling (CSM) operations supply the domestic market and many other african countries. The “northern trail” is an informal supply chain that supplies northern Cameroon and other african markets as far as nigeria, niger, Chad, sudan, Egypt, libya and algeria. This supply chain is organized by ethnic business networks, and represents more than 40,000 m3/year of chainsawn timber, with a cash flow of more than 6 billion FCFa/year.