Some 50 carpenters and wood technicians who have since 45 days been drilled on the wood seasoning techniques were on September 20 handed attestations of end-of-course by the Minister of Forestry and Wildlife, Ngole Philip Ngwese. The laureates resolved to offer better services to clients by using dry wood and to sensitise their colleagues on the benefits of using dry wood.

Handing over the attestations, the Minister urged them to become promoters of good wood, advocates of the benefits of wood works and construction within the framework of sustainable development. "The quality of wood depends on how dry it is", the Minister said. "With the application of the techniques in workshops, more value will be added to our timber products and it will equally render the finished product more competitive", the Minister noted. The Minister made known that there are many structures in the Ministry of Vocational Training to follow up and train more trainees in order to widen the scope and bring Cameroon's product to the limelight.

For 45 days, the laureates learnt both the artificial and natural methods of wood seasoning. For the natural type, the wood is packed in a dry area with a space of four centimeters in-between for free circulation of air and fast drying. The natural method is slow but cheaper while the artificial one is fast but requires much money to buy machines and construct an oven. To one of the laureates, Godlove Foncham Fombum, drying wood leads to the reduction of moisture, thus, long lasting furniture.

Once the wood is well dried, furniture or wood works will hardly get warp on like wet wood that renders wood works out of shape. Edmond Gone Alain, a laureate, argued that 90 per cent of handicraft works is done with wet wood thus hindering them to offer quality services to clients. Hard wood like iroko, bibinga and moibi take longer period to get dried while ayos and frakel take lesser time since they are soft wood.