REPORTS BY COUNTRY

REM pioneered the mandated Independent Monitoring, which meant we had to train staff to work with a completely new mindset. In particular we have had to recruit professional lawyers and foresters in countries often with low technical capacity. We asked them to be proactive without campaigning, to be attentive to constraints, positive and negative actions from the industry, civil society and governments. We asked them to be able to work at high levels with Ministers, international donors or Ambassadors and the following week, to investigate remote areas in often dangerous conditions, often precarious conditions involving travel by motorcycle, pirogue or long walks in the forest.

Finding and training those extraordinary individuals has required time, training and patience, which to maintain the quality of our work has also limited the speed of our expansion. For this reason, we have favoured an organic expansion and including extensive training activities in our work, which we think has been reflected in the quality of information collected and reports produced in the 8 countries we have worked in to date.