Dimako (Cameroon): Urban mining in an African shrinking city

The notion of the shrinking city is a global phenomenon that describes industrial towns in decline. While the phenomenon has emerged in the old industrialised countries, it is also very much present in other contexts, in Africa and Cameroon, as Dimako illustrates. This small town, which prospered with the establishment of an industrial wood processing unit in 1947, has been attracting the markers of an African shrinking city since the closure of the Société Forestière et Industrielle de la Doumé (SFID) site in 2002. Faced with the loss of formal jobs and income, the SFID scrap metal industry began to take shape in 2003. What is the profile of the players in this industry, and how do they work? What is the spatial circulation of scrap metal and where is it recycled? This paper analyses the value chain of SFID’s scrap metal industry. Surveys conducted using a historical-geographical approach reveal that the industry is run by artisanal diggers, small local collectors and large regional collectors. The latter supply the recycling plants in Douala. This circulation of scrap illustrates the economic integration of Dimako, an outlying area 574 km from Douala, Cameroon’s economic capital and a sub-regional industrial and port metropolis.