Share & more
A four-day national conference on water and forestry conservation in the Central African Republic ended on Friday with a recommendation for the introduction of a timber tax and for the protection of the country's waterways, threatened by industrial pollution and the encroachment of sand dunes.
Participants at the conference in Bangui, the capital, called for improved management of the nation's three million hectares of rain forests, and of water, fishing and hunting grounds. They expressed opposition to plans to divert part of the River Oubangui to restock the fast-drying Lake Chad, some 1,020 km to the northwest, in light of declining river levels in the country.
They also recommended that the parliament pass laws protecting fisheries and the forest. The rain forests in the southwest and southeast of the country are home to a vast number of animal species that are a food source to the population. Uncontrolled logging and the slow pace of reforestation now threaten these forests.
The conference recommended the establishment of a technical commission, free of political interference, in charge of issuing logging licenses.
Soon after his seizure of power on 15 March from President Ange-Felix Patasse, Francois Bozize suspended all lumber activity pending the government's new timber policy. Logging is the government's leading source of revenue and employed some 4,000 people before the suspension.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
