By Ogar Monday
List To The Report
As the activities of illegal forest loggers continue unabated in Cross River State, data by the Global Forest Watch, an open-source web application to monitor global forests in near real-time, shows that last year, Cross River State lost 11,800 hectares.
Further analysis of the data showed that Akamkpa and Ikom Local Government Areas were “responsible for 57% of all tree cover loss between 2001 and 2021” in the State, with Biase, Boki, and Yakurr making up the top 5.
Global Forest Watch defines “Tree cover as trees in plantations as well as natural forests, and tree cover loss as the removal of tree canopy due to human or natural causes, including fire.”
As this happens, experts in the State have fingered illegal logging as a “threat to sustainable forest management.”
The experts revealed that over 91,000 tons of timber leave the State every year due to illegal logging and that if that is not quickly abated, the State will lose all its forest within the next decade.
They made this known at an event to mark this year’s World Environment Day, organized by Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) in collaboration with the Cross River-based Community Forest Watch, CFW, with the theme: “Only One Earth, Living Sustainably with Nature.”
Speaking at the event, Dr. Raphael Offiong, of the Department of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Calabar, said an average of “250 tons of timber is taken out every day in the State and 10 days 2, 500 tons are lost and in a year 91,250 tons of timber leave Cross River. In the process of logging, small trees and other features in the forest are destroyed.”
Watch.
