A project to map every place in the world's second-largest tropical forest where trees have been cut down is underway.

A purpose-built camera will be sent into space to record every clearing and logger's track in the Congo Basin in Africa to determine how much of the forest is left.

The camera will be fixed to a satellite and should be operational by the end of 2010 as part of an initiative to save the Central African tropical forest from being chopped down.


Children at logging camp in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo


At twice the size of France, the Congo Basin forest is exceeded in extent only by the Amazon but it is estimated that loggers, many of them illegal, destroy an area the size of 25,000 football pitches every week.

Forests absorb huge quantities of carbon but it is released when they are cut down and their preservation is regarded as one of the biggest challenges by those trying to slow the greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change.

Douglas Alexander, the International Development Secretary, will announce extra funding to save the forest today when he explains the camera project. It will record the forest in more detail than before.


Deforestation can be tracked by satellite images


Ministers agreed to push for the camera, which will be built by the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, because of the need to get more than the current limited information about the state of the forest, which is in one of the most inaccessible and volatile regions of the world. To decide where efforts should be concentrated, politicians and scientists need to know where the impact of logging is worst.

Mr Alexander is expected to say in his speech: �Avoiding deforestation is crucial in the fight against climate change. As the world's second-largest rainforest, the Congo Basin must be at the heart of our response.

�The basin houses a quarter of the world's rainforest, but already an area the size of 25,000 football pitches is cleared of trees every week.

�Protecting the rainforest will help us all in the fight against climate change and also the 50 million people who rely on the Congo forests for their livelihoods.�


African logging decimating pristine forests


Last year, shortly before his elevation from Chancellor to Prime Minister, Gordon Brown announced a �50million fund to be used to protect the Congo Basin. It is expected that it will be reported that the fund has been increased by millions of pounds, perhaps doubling in size, after contributions from other bodies.

Ministers believe that by protecting the forest from destruction they will be acting in the interests of the indigenous peoples, many of whom rely on it for their livelihoods.

Once the detailed satellite pictures have been taken, they will be beamed to a new receiving station that is expected to be built in Central Africa, the first in the region.

Printouts of the pictures can then be taken to villagers to show them what is happening to their environment. With computers virtually non-existent in many of the jungle communities, the extent of deforestation revealed is expected to be a surprise to many inhabitants.

At 770,000 square miles (two million sq km), the Congo Basin contains an estimated 26 per cent of the world's remaining rainforest and has been described as the world's �second lung�. A study by the United Nations revealed that more than two thirds of the forest could be lost by 2040 unless the rate of tree removal is greatly reduced.

The forest featured this week in an atlas of Africa published by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) to show, using satellite images, how the continent has changed in the past 36 years.

The �before and after� satellite images of the Congo Basin revealed that huge chunks of the virgin forest had been lost.

The United Nations estimates that 3,600 square miles are still being lost annually. Logging, the spread of agriculture and human population rises are the biggest threats.


Giant mahogany trees lie alongside a logging road in northern Republic of the Congo.


It is estimated that the forest is home to 50 million people, 10,000 species of plants, 1,000 species of birds and 400 species of mammals.

Sources: Times Online

Africa Science

Groovy -

Thanks for this post. You made me remember an article I'd read a few months ago, about indigenous people of the Congo rainforest, including Pygmies, being given GPS devices to map their surroundings. So much of the forest is inaccessible, except to those who live there, that no one really knows how many villages there are or who lives in them. (Quotes and photos are from Mongabay.)


Elisa Folo, resident of a forest village, checks her GPS.
Mapping Balele village.


They are also mapping other places meaningful to them, such as fishing and hunting areas and sacred grounds. There is a misconception in the general international press and public that the Congo Wars began in 1996 and were over by 2003. I see this reported or implied over and over.

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During these devastating wars, militias and armies exploited the rainforest and its indigenous peoples with impunity. Since the war's end, the political stabilization of the DRC have meant that its forests are under new pressures, this time by industrial and often international logging companies.

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In no sense is the DRC stable. The truth is that there has barely been a break in fighting, so that "Africa's World War" continues today and does not skip a beat amongst the rampant illegal logging and mining. Much of the hardest work is done by children (especially in mining, where the smaller you are the deeper you can go into the earth). Of course, this is probably better work for children than other occupations into which they are forced: being a soldier or sex slave in one of the multitude of fighting factions in Eastern Congo. But, I digress (and become angry), so will return to your topic!

Quote:

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The natives of the forest have largely been left out of forest policy thus far; the hope is that these maps will change that. "It is going to be the first time that anybody in DRC sees on paper that these forest-dependent communities exist," Cath Long, RFUK [Rainforest Foundation UK] Project Director said. "Their maps will be a vital tool for the communities to negotiate with the government. It will allow them to demonstrate that they are there, and that they need to be taken into account when decisions are made about the forest they live in."
The maps are to be completed by May 8th, in time for a meeting where the DRC government will decide how various territories of the forest will be used. [Italics mine.] The meeting could affect forest policy in the DRC for decades. For indigenous villagers, who have already seen portions of their territory handed over to logging companies, this is an opportunity to make their voice heard.

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Well, I don't believe for a minute that the government of the DRC or any other armed faction there gives a pile of guano about the rainforest inhabitants or conservation-oriented, legal exploitation of its resources. (For more of my rantings on Congo topics, see Waiting for Peace in Bukavu, where there is also a good map of natural resources in the DRC. ) This is how well-meaning NGOs like the RFUK can find themselves in the horrible position of aiding and abetting the worst intentions of human nature - by helping with a government project in a volatile African country. This is not to say this will be the outcome. No one knows, yet. But the modern history of Africa does not encourage trust in the intentions of the men with guns or of the international community.

Regards,
Diane