Côte d’Ivoire: Reforestation Campaign against Exploitation

In 50 years 95 % of the Ivorian forest destroyed
For the situation is dramatic: M. Mamadou Sangaré, director of the Association for Forest Development (Société de Developpement des Fôrets/Sodefor), states a "forest destruction exceeding 95% in 50 years." Forest preservation areas, nature conservancy parks and reserves are being violated. In addition we have bush fires and out-of-control utilisation of the forest – which also always involves slash-and-burn clearing. Furthermore, in the past ten years, due to the political and military crisis that convulsed the country, networks of illegal forestry companies have been spreading that carry out illegal logging, often with the assistance of forest rangers whom they bribe with large sums of money. Moreover, everywhere in the country, but mainly in the south, illegal “woodyards” that aid and abet this dishonest trade have settled in.

Measures against depredation
Last year, Forestry Minister M. Bouéka Nabo Clément smashed about ten of these woodyards in the municipality of Yopougon to the west of Abidjan. In addition, he issued a decree placing the 400 hectare forest of Anguédédou under protection, with the result that families packed up and left that had settled in this stretch of land and thereby destroyed the greater portion of the forest.
Now begins the second phase of the rescue of the Ivorian forest: a nation-wide reforestation campaign that was officially opened on Friday, 8 June in Korhogo (633 kilometres north of Abidjan). In this part of the country, where very dry conditions prevail, more than 3000 hectares of forest are to be restored. For the opening, Forestry Minister M. Bouéka Nabo Clément symbolically planted the first tree in the Mount Korhogo forest conservancy area. Through 2015, 20,000 hectares of barren land are to be restored as “green surfaces”. Here, the cultivation of a variety of tree species will be supported: teak, iroko, mahagony … “This project will create 4000 new jobs per year and secure the livelihoods of 40,000 people,” affirms the director of Sodefor. He wishes to mobilise all citizens for the reforestation campaign – under the slogan: “One tree per year for every Ivorian, for an ever-greener and flourishing Ivory Coast.”

The government is pursuing three goals in all: protecting what remains of the forest against any and all kinds of attack, industrial development of lumber resources to curtail waste, and reforestation of damaged surfaces. The struggle to save the Ivorian forest has just begun …