By Pauline Bax
INTERNATIONAL - Cameroon suspended a plan to allow logging in a forest that’s home to lowland gorillas and chimpanzees by withdrawing a July decree that made part of the area the private property of the state.
The government said July 14 it would declare almost half the Ebo Forest a so-called Forest Management Unit, opening it up for logging. The 141,706-hectare (350,163-acre) reserve was designated as a proposed National Park in 2006 and is rich in biodiversity, with elephants, gray parrots and a unique population of tool-wielding chimpanzees among its fauna.
The decision to bring 68,385 hectares of the forest under direct state control was withdrawn on the orders of President Paul Biya, and the procedure to convert it into a forest management unit has been suspended, according to an Aug. 11 statement from the prime minister’s office. It didn’t provide a reason for the decision.
The Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee endemic to the area uses sticks to fish for termites and hammer-like stones and wooden clubs to crack open nuts, according to the website of Global Wildlife Conservation. While those actions have been observed among other chimpanzee subspecies, Ebo Forest is the only place where the apes display both skills, it said.
Greenpeace Africa welcomed the announcement, but said the fate of Ebo Forest and the rights of local communities remained unclear. Greenpeace Africa and Rainforest Rescue will continue campaigning until the forest is saved, the organization said in a statement Thursday.
Local communities have opposed the government’s plan for years, citing ancestral ownership and describing it as land grabbing, Forestry Minister Jules Doret Ndongo said in an interview last month.
BLOOMBERG