Appeal launched to save Central African forest

Biologist Dr Michael Fay of the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has made an impassioned appeal to save the Langoue Forest, a pristine area of more than 600,000 acres within the Congo jungle in Gabon, Business Wire reported on Tuesday. Speaking at a recent conference sponsored by Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI) held in California, Fay indicated that US $3.5 million is needed immediately to purchase the logging rights to the forest and return it to the public domain. This is the first step in creating the Langoue National Park, which will preserve the land. Fay recently made a 15-month exploratory trek through a remote forest corridor spanning the Republic of Congo (ROC), Central African Republic (CAR), and Gabon, including the Langoue Forest, in order to systematically survey the plant and wildlife in the region and to determine the human impact of sparsely populated villages in the region. By documenting the near-pristine wilderness of central Africa, Fay said he hopes to convince the world of the importance of preserving the region. “My mission is to raise the US $3.5 million needed to purchase logging rights to this forest and to support legislation to make it a national park. Should this mission fail, another magical place will vanish forever.” For more information on this initiative, go to http://www.savethecongo.org