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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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TEXT STARTS HERE:
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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