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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
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.
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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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