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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Debating the Future of Central Africa's Rainforest
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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
http://forests.org/
2/20/97
OVERVIEW, SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE
The following story details the expansion of industrial logging in the
Central African rainforest. Interactions between increased log
harvest and more accessibility to previous wilderness areas through
logging roads are responsible for increased deforestation rates. The
article concludes that if present trends continue, all but a much
reduced rainforest core in Zaire may be lost in the next 20 years.
g.b.
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If a tree falls in the forest, does it hurt the forest?
Debating the future of Central Africa's rainforest
February 18, 1997
Web posted at: 3:40 p.m. EST (2040 GMT)
> From Correspondent Gary Strieker
Copyright 1997, Cable News Network, Inc.
EASTERN CAMEROON (CNN) -- There seems no end to the dense carpet of
trees stretching across the Congo basin, in the heart of Africa.
Covering an area more than five times the size of France, it is second
only to the Amazon basin among the world's rainforests.
The Central African forest dominates the geography of six countries.
It's their most important renewable asset, the home of people whose
lives are bound closely to it and countless plant and animal species,
some of which are endangered.
Loggers chipping away at vast forest
The forest is also a major asset for the earth. Without it, the
planet's atmosphere and climate could change dramatically. But
accelerated commercial logging poses a growing threat to the forest.
"Logging has increased," says Steve Gartlan of the Worldwide Fund for
Nature. "The controls on the logging are virtually non-existent, and
so the rate of destruction is increasing."
In a flow that never stops, trees from the forest reach ports like
Douala in Cameroon, Africa's largest timber exporter.
"We are exploiting, and I'm afraid that when we realize what is
happening, it will be too late," says Samuel Nguiffo of the Center for
Environment & Development.
Central African timber is highly competitive on the world market, and
governments presiding over the forest desperately need earnings from
timber exports to repay international debt and satisfy the demands of
growing populations.
Conservationists warn that in the rush to cash in on the timber boom,
aggressive logging will destroy the forest.
Many believe the forests of Central Africa will meet the fate of West
African forests, especially in Ivory Coast and Nigeria, where
uncontrolled logging has wiped out virtually all primary forests in
only a few years.
Timber industry advocates say forest not endangered
On the other side, are those who say conservationists are overreacting
to the expansion of the timber industry.
"The impression given is that forest destruction in Cameroon is being
done by foresters, but that is not true," says Abel Mukete of Mukete
Plantations Ltd.
The real damage, they say, is done by farmers who slash and burn trees
to clear land for crops.
Others say conservationists are simply wrong in their assessment of
the damage.
"I think they tend to underrate the capacity of the forest to
regenerate itself," said Prince Ekale Mukete of Mukete
Plantations Inc.
But very few deny the forest is shrinking, attacked at the edges by
growing human settlements, penetrated by logging roads that bring not
only timber crews, but also more farmers and hunters, who can now
reach areas once inaccessible to trap and shoot wildlife for
commercial markets.
Environmental experts say in less than 20 years much of the Central
African rainforest will be gone. The heart of the forest, in the Congo
basin deep inside Zaire, might still be untouched, they say, but vast
stretches of forest that now surround the forest's central core, and
much of the wildlife they contain, will then be only a memory.
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