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Africa Renewal (United Nations)

Africa: Saving the Continent's Forests - The 'Lungs of the World'

Michael Fleshman

4 January 2008

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analysis

From the air the forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) stretch as far as the eye can see, broken only by distant, shining ribbons of rivers and streams. Dense, deep, seemingly impenetrable, the forests of the Central African region extend over 200 mn hectares, inspiring awe and sometimes dread among residents and visitors, and providing refuge for everything from rare and endangered plants and animals to ferocious militias accused of brutal crimes against humanity.

It is difficult to imagine that such vast ancient woodlands are at risk of extinction. But they are disappearing at an alarming rate. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), indigenous (also known as "old-growth") forests in Africa are being cut down at a rate of more than 4 mn hectares per year - twice the world's deforestation average. According to the FAO, losses totalled more than 10 per cent of the continent's total forest cover between 1980 and 1995 alone.

Saving Africa's forests from the chainsaw and axe of encroaching humanity is essential to the health and productivity of much of the continent's economy, experts point out. They cite the forests' roles as watersheds, defences against soil erosion and regulators of local weather conditions.

Trees trap 'greenhouse gases'

But the fate of the forests could also spell the difference between success and failure in the race against global warming. Trees, the dominant inhabitants of the diverse and complex ecological systems called forests, are among the world's largest and most efficient living storehouses of carbon monoxide, the "greenhouse gas" most responsible for the earth's temperature rise and changes in the planet's climate (see Africa Renewal July 2007).

Through a chemical process known as photosynthesis, trees and many other plants absorb carbon from the air and combine it with sunlight to generate the energy they need for life. Trees convert the carbon gas into solid form, store it in their trunks, branches and leaves, and release oxygen back into the atmosphere. Because they take carbon from the atmosphere and produce oxygen, forests are often referred to as "the lungs of the world." Carbon dioxide is generated primarily by the burning of oil, coal, natural gas and other "fossil" fuels for industry, power generation and transportation.

Preserving Africa's surviving tropical forests and planting new trees to replace those lost to deforestation could help reduce the severity of climate change by absorbing more carbon from the air, and ease the local impact of climate change by regulating local weather conditions.

But an even greater argument for protecting the forests is the role of deforestation in causing global warming. According to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), between 20 and 25 per cent of all annual carbon dioxide emissions are caused by the practice of burning forests to clear the land for farming - more than is caused by the entire world transportation sector. Burning trees and brush releases the stored carbon back into the atmosphere.

Poor forest management policies - including unrestricted logging, excessive harvesting of firewood and medicinal plants, and road construction - contribute to the problem, as do drought, flooding, forest fires and other natural disasters. The collection of wood for heating and cooking and for making charcoal is a particular problem in Africa, since wood supplies about 70 per cent of domestic energy needs, a significantly higher percentage than in the rest of the world.

Estimates of the total amount of carbon stored in the forests vary greatly. One estimate, based on research by the UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), put the total at about 1,000 bn tonnes, or about 166 years' worth of current global carbon emissions. Africa contains about 15 per cent of the world's remaining forests and is second only to South America in the amount of the dense tropical forests that are the most effective in removing carbon from the atmosphere. The vast forests of the DRC alone are estimated to contain as much as 8 per cent of all the carbon stored in the earth's vegetation.

The conversion of forest land to agriculture, both subsistence and commercial, is by far the most common and most destructive cause of deforestation in Africa and other tropical regions. As demand for farmland grows in response to population pressures, millions of hectares of tropical forests are being put to the torch in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

"It is generally accepted," the FAO noted in a 2000 report on sustainable forestry in Africa, "that the key to arresting deforestation and to implementing sustainable forest development lies in improved technologies for food production."

Improving the productivity of African agriculture is a top priority for African governments and features prominently in the continent's development agenda, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). But transforming the poorly financed and long-neglected agricultural sector is a costly, difficult and long-term goal (see Africa Renewal July 2006). Reform therefore appears unlikely to progress quickly enough to prevent further severe losses to the continent's woodlands.

In the meantime, improving governments' ability to manage their forest resources, expanding reforestation programmes and changing public perceptions and economic calculations about the value of existing forests could be the key to the survival of Africa's deep woods.

Forests and people

The challenges are formidable. Humanity has long appreciated forests for the energy, food and medicine they provide, and as a source of wood products for construction and other purposes. But the role of forests in supporting agriculture, preserving biodiversity, protecting water supplies and moderating the impact of climate change are less well understood. The UN estimated that in 2000 some 1.6 billion people around the world, including many of the world's poorest, derived at least part of their food, income or medical needs directly from the forest. Of those, some 70 million indigenous people depend on the forests for much of their livelihoods.

A forest hunter in Uganda: Many local communities depend on forests for food, medicinal plants and other supplies.

Africa's rural poor are particularly dependent on its forests. Although forest products, primarily unfinished logs, account for only about 2 per cent of sub-Saharan Africa's exports, forests generate an average of 6 per cent of the region's gross domestic product - triple the world average. Eighteen African countries, including Cameroon and Ghana, are among the 24 countries worldwide that rely on forests for 10 per cent or more of their economies.

Although environmentalists and advocacy groups have brought international attention to unsustainable, and often illegal, logging in Central and West Africa, about half of all the wood extracted from Africa's forests is used domestically as fuel. Despite the enormous losses to deforestation, the region is a net importer of processed wood products.

The perception of indigenous forests as a reservoir of unused land and a safety net for bad times is understandable, UNEP forestry expert Christian Lambrechts told Africa Renewal. "People have to rely on the forest to gain access to specific products they can't buy on the market," he says. "They have no cash. They can't go to the chemist. They have to go to the forest to extract medicinal plants."

Such "subsistence" exploitation of the forests is inevitable in areas of high poverty and causes no damage when done sustainably, Mr. Lambrechts notes. But when large numbers of people are forced to use forests for food and fuel, "it has a local impact on the degradation of the forests."

Valuing forests, not the trees

Changing the way governments and people value forests, Mr. Lambrechts says, is critical to the survival of those forests. Although the market can price the value of tree plantations and reforestation programmes intended as renewable sources of timber and fuel, he explains, it is not good at determining the value of old-growth forests, which provide a range of vital, but less tangible, services to the economy.

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