ENVIRONMENT-MALI: Officials Try to Cut Down on Logging

By Almahady Cissé Reprint | | Print |

Almahady Cisse

BAMAKO, Aug 24 2004 (IPS) - The rapid pace of deforestation in Mali has prompted government to introduce a ban on the logging of live trees during the country’s rainy season, in the second half of the year.

Beginning last month, the export of firewood will also be outlawed during this period. Most of Mali’s wood exports go to neighbouring Mauritania.

“From now on loggers are going to have to make do with dead trees, the culling of which will improve our forests,” says Environment Minister Nancouma Keita.

At present, about 400,000 hectares of land are deforested annually to produce firewood for Malians, who use six million tonnes of this fuel every year. A 2000 study by the National Office of Energy showed that firewood is used for almost all domestic heating needs in Mali.

In light of statistics such as these, “doing nothing (about deforestation) means that the future of our children is in danger,” said Ousmane Keita, a retired logger, in an interview with IPS. Some 10 percent of Mali’s surface area is forested (while the north of the country is composed of Saharan desert).

Authorities were prodded into taking action on logging by a meeting between subsistence farmers and Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure in the central town of Mopti, in June. In the course of this gathering, the farmers voiced fears about the extent to which Mali’s arable land was being turned into desert.

“To guarantee that the new provisions are enforced, monitoring squads will be crisscrossing logging areas, especially forest and brush areas,” Alpha Aly of the National Office for the Conservation of Nature told IPS.

Adds Felix Dakouo, national director for nature conservation, “There will be no more pity for recalcitrants. From now on, lawbreakers will have to pay the penalties set by law…regarding logging and wood transport.”

“Penalties will range from fines of 5,000 to 50,000 CFA francs (about nine to 95 dollars) and 10 days to a month in prison,” says Dakouo. Chainsaws could also be seized, he told IPS, and the vehicles used to transport wood impounded.

Aly admits that Mali does not have the resources to monitor wooded areas around the clock. But, he adds, “We know where the most important sites are, where irresponsible logging takes place.”

Aboua Camara, a firewood retailer in the capital, Bamako, takes a less optimistic view.

“Even if it is illegal, people will continue chopping down trees because that’s their livelihood,” he noted.

The difficulties posed by safeguarding forests have left some nostalgic for the rule of former dictator Moussa Traore, in the 1980s. While Keita acknowledges that the leader often acted harshly, he notes that forestry teams which were active under Traore were effective in preventing irresponsible logging.

These teams, composed of soldiers acting as forest wardens, monitored all wooded sites – and issued large fines against offending loggers, sometimes even beating them.

Hamidou Minta, a researcher at the Rural Polytechnic Institute, takes another view.

“We must avoid adopting bad forest conservation policies, such as those used in the past, that start from the premise that (deforestation) is ‘caused by poor people’,” he notes, adding “In the 1980s, for example, a draconian set of measures was put in place by the forestry service concerning the use of forests by local communities.”

Minta says these unpopular policies were vigorously resisted by those who lived around wooded areas, as they found themselves deprived of an important part of their livelihood.

“This initiative was ultimately abandoned, with no positive result,” observes Minta.

The government’s latest conservation efforts appear to be meeting wth some success.

Boundouga Keita – assistant director of the forestry station at Niamana, near the capital of Bamako – told IPS that even allowing for the onset of the rainy season, considerably less wood and charcoal were being taken into the city.

Niamana is one of the main transit points for wood that is delivered from Zantiguila and Manakoro, about 240 kilometres south of Bamako – and from Kassela, 60 kilometres south-west of the capital.

Unaware of the ban on logging live trees, certain persons interviewed by IPS in Bamako believed the higher prices now being charged for wood and charcoal were the result of winter shortages.

“A bag of charcoal which normally sells for 3,000 CFA francs (almost six dollars) went up to 4,500 or 5,000 CFA francs (more than eight or nine dollars) or even more in certain areas of the capital,” Fanta Keita Ballo, a housewife from the suburb of Badalabougou said.

This situation has prompted dire warnings from the likes of Alou Kanté, who transports charcoal.

“If this continues, Bamako will experience a shortage of wood – because the amount that is available at rural markets is not sufficient to meet demand,” he claims.

But, Dakouo dismisses these fears. “Our studies have shown that stocks of wood and charcoal are sufficient to cater for the period of the bans,” he said during a recent press conference in the capital.

A question that still begs asking, however, is whether Mali is developing the use of alternative energy sources by its citizens – or technologies that make the use of wood more efficient.

According to Dakouo, an alternative that has been experimented with over the past decade is an improved version of the stove, made out of local materials such as mud bricks.

The use of this stove “reduces the amount of wood or charcoal used for domestic energy needs,” he said – although no detailed study has yet been done on this device.

Salimata Coulibaly, president of the Malian Consumers’ Association, says gas has also come under discussion as a possible alternative to wood – but that its use remains limited at the moment.