The oil industry along the Atlantic coast of Cameroon: Assessing impacts and possible solutions

While the oil industry along the Atlantic coast of Cameroon has made important contributions to the national economy, this has been accompanied with adverse environmental impacts. There has been significant pollution from oil drilling, refinery waste, oil spillage, gas and flaring. After discussing these impacts, this paper argues that prevailing regulations are inadequate and need overhauling. It proposes that cleaner production requires: (i) specific laws to protect dwellers in the neighbourhood of oil refineries, filling stations, service stations and pipelines; (ii) adoption of national standards for levels of industrial effluents, and allocation of sufficient resources for monitoring these standards; (iii) formation of industry-government research partnerships; (iv) the divorcing of gas flaring; and (v) a more comprehensive legislation enabling a robust public participation in environmental impact assessment and nomination of indicators to evaluate corporate environmental management plans. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.