Story by AFP
Burning tree trunks to produce charcoal for use as a cheap fuel is illegal in the protected rainforest in Sierra Leone© PATRICK MEINHARDT
Deep inside a Sierra Leone national park, a mother of seven was about to set dozens of tree trunks ablaze to make charcoal.
Producing the cheap fuel in this way is illegal in the protected rainforest near the capital of a country highly vulnerable to the ravages of climate change.
But Aminata Sankoh, a widow who said she had no other choice for making a living, defiantly shrugged off a stern warning from a group of villagers who monitor the forests as part of a groundbreaking grassroots initiative.
“You are saying you are not affected by this deforestation, that there will be tree planting — but it will affect your own great grandchildren!” chided group leader Caesar Senesie.
The extent of the deforestation in the humid tropical forest and what remains of the primary forest is clear as far as the eye can see.
Some has been taken over for marijuana plantations — Sierra Leone is battling drug problems — and land grabbing is also rife to satisfy demographic pressures.
Units of villagers have been set up to monitor the forests under an unprecedented initiative to fight deforestation© PATRICK MEINHARDT
Nearly a third, or 5,600 hectares (13,837 acres) of the forest within the Western Area Peninsula National Park has been lost or severely degraded since 2012.
Poverty, ignorance and greed drive deforestation, a conservation activist said© PATRICK MEINHARDT
Last year alone “intensive deforestation” led to the loss of 715 hectares, or the equivalent of 1,330 football pitches, according to the World Food Programme.
UNESCO says the area is home to between 80 and 90 percent of Sierra Leone’s biodiversity.
But charcoal is the only way for many Sierra Leoneans to cook in the face of power cuts and soaring energy prices.
“Even at night, when we have a fire break out, I call my guys, we move straight away,” Senesie, the group leader, said.
“We, the community, are the solution to protect the forest,” he added.
Funded by the Global Environment Facility, the initiative was launched by the Environmental Foundation for Africa (EFA) NGO, with support from the government and the United Nations Development Programme.
People carry out illegal activities in the national park “because they can and believe that they will get away with it every time”, Tommy Garnett, EFA founder and executive director, said.
He blamed poverty, ignorance and greed for driving the deforestation.
“This situation is destroying our natural heritage at an alarming rate,” warned Garnett, who for 30 years has been involved in conservation projects in Sierra Leone and other west African countries.
Sierra Leone is the 11th most vulnerable nation to the impact of climate change out of 191 countries ranked by the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative.