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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

Africa Takes Tentative Steps Toward Protecting Rainforests

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

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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.

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