Well, the reason that I chose Cameroon in the first place was that I wrote about it recently over at Kos, noting that the Palo Verde Nuclear Station in Arizona, USA produces more energy than the entire nation of Cameroon.   In links therein, I note that the causes of deforestation in Cameroon are complex.   Certainly the mean old capitalist foreign logging companies are involved, but so is Cameroonian energy demand, of which burning wood represents 60%.

Of course, one might also argue that poverty plays a role.   I'm quite sure that some of the Cameroonians who cut the wood that

There is an element of tongue-in-cheek, and certainly a "magic bullet" thinking about my argument st Kos.   Certainly if they built the equivalent of Palo Verde in Cameroon they would almost certainly have nothing to which to connect the plant.   Being relatively near the equator, it is hard to imagine that Cameroonians cut down trees to heat their homes.   Mostly, I'd guess, they burn wood to cook.   It's not like the construction of a nuclear plant in Cameroon will suddenly mean that 10,000,000 electric stoves will be purchased, connected to a grid and come into use.

However it is difficult to imagine as well that 30,000,000 Cameroonians will suddenly be able to afford the solar systems that even few Westerners can afford either.   If one adds on top of that the internal and external cost of batteries, solution of the question becomes even more remote.

The real crisis in Cameroon is about poverty and population.   It is fine to point to the expression of this poverty being financial abstractions about the devaluation of the Cameroonian Franc, but these are as much symptoms as causes.   Few, if any, people in Cameroon became wildcat loggers - whether or not they were burning the wood for fuel, or providing the raw material for a rare wood fingerboard for Sting's guitar - out of venality.   They became loggers because they needed to survive.

At the core of my belief system - and let's be clear that I am certainly not optimistic that my ideas will ever see the practical light of day  - is the notion that the key to the extremely crtical moral, environmental, social and economic problems is poverty itself.   Addressing the problem of poverty is not straight forward and not easy and some solutions tried have certainly made the matter worse, not better.   From my perspective poverty is best defined as restricted access to the infrastructure, not access and dependence on that infrastructure.   To my way of thinking a movement to live off the land is in fact a movement towards poverty.

Of course, there are people who take "vows of poverty," most famously Ghandi.   Ghandi apparently had quite a wit and once quipped that his advisors were very much upset with the huge financial cost of keeping him living in poverty.   There is something more fundemental at work here though.  

If for instance, we take a Cameroonian family and simply give them more stuff they are not immediately going to be inspired to use Western style birth control strategies to have smaller families.

My view is that Westerners, for ethical reasons, should accept vastly reduced living standards, that they should take some kind of vow, if not of poverty, than at least of limits and conservation.   That said I also believe that people in the third world should consume more, not less, to break themselves out of the tragic cycle in which they find themselves.   The proper context for this to happen in my view is with high regulation by society itself - expressed as good government and strong international relationships predicated on peace and respect - coupled with co-operation in both resources and production.  It is very important though that we be flexible and construct feedback loops to recognize what does and does not work.   We know that the birthrate in Finland and Japan is below the replacement rate - which is large a good thing in my view - with the demographic concerns aside.   However this does not mean that we can solve Cameroons population problem by making Cameroonians into Finns.  

I am not about to argue that either capitalism, socialism  or anarchy - especially in their purest forms - are ideal solutions to any problem.   There is a great deal of rhetoric about these matters, but mostly it is theoretical and to some extent, theatrical.   To my mind the most morally successful observed economic cultures have relied on a flexible mix of approaches.