Africa takes tentative steps toward protecting rainforests

August 6, 1999
Web posted at: 5:58 p.m. EDT (2158 GMT)

From Correspondent 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.

Timber is a major source of revenue for African nations

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.

Civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo prevented them from attending the forest summit

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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