Africa Takes Tentative Steps Toward Protecting Rainforests
8/7/99
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by EE
Here is a good mainstream media article covering recent developments
in African rainforest conservation. There appears to have been a
resurgence of interest in this topic as of late.
g.b.
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Africa takes tentative steps toward protecting rainforests
Source: Cable News Network
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: August 6, 1999
Byline: Gary Strieker
YAOUNDE, Cameroon (CNN) -- Each year, nearly 40,000 square kilometers
of African forest are lost -- an area as big as Switzerland and three
times the size of Connecticut. Much of it is falling to chainsaws in
the vast central African rainforest.
Second in size only to the Amazon, this region is home to more than
half of Africa's wild plant and animal species, many of which face
certain extinction if destruction on this scale continues.
But there are signs that uncontrolled commercial logging in central
Africa might slow down. Some government officials say it's time to
change.
"We want to preserve this forest for the interests of the
international community and for our own interests, the interests of
Cameroon," says Sylvestre Naah Ondoua, Cameroon's minister of
environment and forests.
The central rainforest stretches into seven African nations, each of
them burdened with poverty, international debt, pervasive corruption,
even civil war.
For these countries, exporting timber is a major source of cash, and
protecting forests from over exploitation has been a low priority.
Now, some tentative steps toward protection are being taken. Earlier
this year, leaders from six central African states signed a
declaration that may lead to protection of some forest areas and
sustainable management of the rest. The summit was co-chaired by
Prince Philip, representing the Worldwide Fund for Nature, which
inspired the meeting.
"It was very successful, in terms of WWF's agenda," says the WWF's
Steve Gartlan. "The commitments they made were valuable." But beyond
meetings of diplomats, this forest could get more protection from
simple economics.
Most Asian logging companies have packed up and quit the region,
busted by financial crises back home. Asians were blamed here for
taking logging practices to new levels of greed.
In Cameroon, the government has imposed a ban on log exports, a
measure intended to promote local processing and conserve forest
resources.
Some experts say these are positive signals that the central African
forest can still be saved from widespread destruction. But others say
nothing has really changed.
Cameroon's government has now exempted the most important commercial
tree species from the export ban, and Asian loggers are expected to
return when their economies recover.
And as for the forest summit, critics say, the final declaration was a
watered-down statement of principals with no mention of any new
specific protected areas conservationists hoped would be endorsed at
the summit.
The Democratic Republic of Congo, distracted by an ugly civil war, did
not even attend. That country's rainforest is larger than those in all
six other nations combined.
Still, some conservationists believe there has been progress, as last
in getting forest conservation on official agenda.
"We've been given an opportunity now, a challenge, and it's our
responsibility to make sure that things are delivered substantively,"
says the WWF's Gartlan.
That would mean real progress by governments here in creating new
protected forest areas and taking serious measures to stop destructive
logging.
The governments are talking about it, but so far it's little more than
talk.