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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

Amid Logging, Hope in African Rainforest

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

     http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Archives

      http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest Conservation

 

2/21/00

OVERVIEW, SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE

There have been rhetorical advances as of late in African

rainforest conservation.  It remains to be seen whether talking

the talk leads to walking the walk.  Planetary survival depends

upon making it so.

g.b.

 

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Title:   Amid rampant logging, a ray of hope in African rainforest

Source:  Cable News Network, http://www.cnn.com/

Status:  Copyright 2000, contact source for permission to reprint

Date:    February 16, 2000

Byline:  Gary Strieker                              

 

YAOUNDE, Cameroon (CNN) -- Commercial logging consumes nearly 40,000

square kilometers of African forest each year, an area the size

Switzerland.                      

                                                         

Much of it falls to chainsaws in the vast central African rainforest.

Second in size only to the Amazon, it Africa's wild plants and      

animals.                                                 

                                                         

Many endangered species face certain extinction if destruction on

this scale continues. But signs suggest logging in central Africa    

might slow down.                                         

                                                         

Government officials in the region increasingly are recognizing the

benefits of preserving the forests.

 

"We want to preserve this forest for the interests of the

international community and for our Cameroon," said Sylvestre

Naah Ondoua, Cameroon minister of environment and forests.                                                  

                                                         

The central rainforest stretches into seven African nations, each

burdened with poverty, international debt, pervasive corruption, and

civil strife or war.

                                                          

For these countries, exporting timber has provided a major source of

cash; protecting forests from over-exploitation has been a low

priority.               

 

But they have taken tentative steps toward protection. A year ago,

leaders from six central African states signed a declaration that may

lead to protection of some forest of the remainder.       

                                                         

The summit was co-chaired by Prince Philip of Great president

emeritus of the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), which the meeting.       

                                                         

"It was very successful," said Steve Gartlan of the WWF. "The

commitments that were made were valuable."

         

Besides diplomatic agreements, simple economics could help protect

some forestlands.

                                                         

Most Asian logging companies have packed up and left the region,

reeling from financial crises back home. Some Africans blamed the

Asians for much of the deforestation, 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 forest can still

be saved from widespread really changed.

 

Cameroon's government has exempted the most important species from

the export ban. And Asian loggers are expected to return when their

economies recover.                                                 

 

As for the forest summit, critics say, the final declaration was a

watered-down statement of principles.  There was no mention of new

specific protected areas that conservationists hoped summit delegates

would endorse.   

                                                         

And the Democratic Republic of Congo, distracted by an ugly civil

war, did not even attend. Its rain forest is larger than those in the

six other nations combined.

                                                         

Yet some conservationists believe progress has taken in placing

forest conservation on the official agenda. "We've been given an

opportunity now, a challenge, and it's our responsibility to make

sure that things are delivered substantively," Gartlan said.

                                                          

Real progress would mean governments create new protected forest

areas and take serious measures to stop destructive logging. So far,

the governments are talking about it, but little more.                               

 

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