ABSTRACT
The importance of preserving habitat is examined in a report for the World Society for the Protection of Animals, Slaughter of the Apes.17 The report states that the tropical rainforests in Africa were originally extensive but are now confined to the Central African countries of Zaire, Congo, Cameroon and Gabon. These forests are rich in terms of biodiversity and yet only 7% of them are protected, and in many areas law enforcement is weak if not non-existent. Africa is the third-largest producer of tropical timber at 11 million cubic metres of wood a year, compared with 92 million in Asia and 28 million in Latin America. Forestry operations are rarely, if ever, carried out in a planned or sustainable manner. Eighty-seven per cent of the timber goes to the EU; the UK is the biggest importer by value. Much of the development is undertaken by foreign companies – of 150 logging licences issued un 1987/88, only 23 were operated by Cameroonian concerns in. Sixty-seven foreign companies operated there and controlled 81% of the exploitable forest. Approximately 40% of these companies were EU subsidiaries of multinational companies, 20 of which had been awarded logging concessions. Development aid is also used to help the logging trade. Often this pays for new roads used by the European logging companies. The roads built provide the impetus behind the bush meat trade and are often used to transport the meat from the forests to towns. The development of the forests by the logging companies has also dramatically increased the populations of the regions. For example, the report states that in an area around Mbang in the heart of Cameroon’s South Eastern logging district, the population increased from 14,000 to 23,000 in four years. This provides a widely expanded market for bush meat. The hunting of fruiteating mammals and birds poses a long-term threat to the survival of the habitat as they play a key role in seed dispersal. The report focuses on the plight of apes, giving the numbers of apes left in Africa as up to 200,000 chimpanzees, 3,000-5,000 eastern lowland gorillas, and 50,000-100,000 western lowland gorillas. The 1,500 bonobo gorillas are listed as threatened, and there are only 650 mountain gorillas left. These are listed by the IUCN as endangered.
