The hidden costs of deforestation

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has raised the alarm over the disappearance of forests throughout Africa, warning that despite the establishment of sound national forestry policies, implementation remains weak. "Africa suffered a net loss of forests exceeding nine million acres [3.6 million hectares] per year between 2000 and 2005," FAO said in a statement released after the African Forestry and Wildlife Commission meeting in Maputo, Mozambique, last week. With a net rate of loss second only to South America's, the continent leads the world in the frequency of forest fires, "mainly due to the traditional practice of using fire for conversion of forest to agriculture or grassland," the statement observed. According to Peter Lowe, Forest Conservation Officer at the FAO Regional Office for Africa, "some 60 percent of the world's burnt area is caused by African fires. In a typical year, about seven percent of the continent burns, with some countries experiencing figures three to four times that average". "Within Africa, the countries of Southern Africa contributed over one-quarter of the African loss. FAO estimates that Southern Africa lost over one million hectares of forest annually [between 2000 and 2005]," he noted. Lowe said the forces driving deforestation - population growth reliant on wood fuel and non-intensive agriculture - were accelerating, and "foresters cannot keep pace". With food insecurity an increasing problem in Southern Africa, more and more people are relying on woodlands to serve their basic needs, to act as a safety net when harvests fail and to earn cash. "This has been exacerbated by the return of sick people suffering HIV/AIDS to rural areas, who are too weak to cultivate." "For the mass of urban and rural poor, the real issues are food, health and survival - this year, not for future generations. Their livelihoods are directly linked to the use and small-scale commercialisation of forest products, such as firewood, forest foods, game meat and medicines," he pointed out. The consequences tend to snowball. Forest cover contributes indirectly to agricultural production through soil fertilisation, effective soil hydrology, stream flow moderation and soil erosion control, and "long-term degradation or disappearance of forests has an inevitable effect on the productivity of extensive agricultural systems, which most rural folk rely on", Lowe said. In Malawi, one of the Southern African countries hardest hit by drought, particularly in the highly populated south, "the concern is very real - satellite images have shown that deforestation is one of our biggest problems," Samuel Kamoto, Advocacy, Environmental Education and Communication Director at the Wildlife and Environmental Society of Malawi told IRIN. "Malawi has an agro-based economy: land degradation reduces productivity but also affects the fisheries industry, as water washes more silt into the lake [Lake Malawi]. The use of wood as a source of fuel in Malawi is very high: clearing the forests will result in an energy problem - the price of wood is constantly going up," he said. Tourism was "another important sector that suffers from deforestation - wild life is already on the decline, particularly the animals that attract tourists", Kamoto commented. Malawi has a forestry policy and a forestry act. But there was a trade-off between livelihoods [such as hunting and poaching] and wildlife conservation, Lowe explained. As forests reduced in size, there was more contact between wildlife and rural people, leading to crop damage, injury and death. This placed wildlife under political scrutiny, which could bring culling and restriction of troublesome species. "Over the last five years we have seen 2.8 percent deforestation [in Malawi] every year. We know that it is an issue that can be addressed, but we will need a concerted effort," Kamoto said. According to FAO, there has been some improvement. "More than half of African countries have established new forestry policies and laws over the past 15 years, and two-thirds now have an active national forestry management programme in place." But lack of financing and ineffective national institutions meant "implementation and enforcement of these measures remains weak". "In Malawi the dependency on charcoal is the biggest problem," Kamoto said. "It is illegal to make unless sustainable resources are used, but because these are not available, you can't enforce the law. People will have to be given alternatives, particularly for fuel, such as using paraffin and biogas instead of relying only on wood or charcoal."