Govt Permits Deforestation

By Alusine Sesay

The government of Sierra Leone has authorized the deforestation of communities through the lifting of a ban on logging and transporting of timber.

It could be recalled that the government of Sierra Leone through the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced the temporal suspension of all logging and transporting of timber products across the country from 10th June to 31 October 2022.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs said in a statement it put out on Wednesday that “In view of the above, the Ministry of Internal Affairs wishes to inform the public that the temporal suspension has been lifted on timber logging and transporting effective 1st November 2022.”

Logging operations on the national forests of the Sierra Leone continue to have a significant detrimental impact on the ecological health of these vital forest systems, according to environmental campaigners.

According to Global Security, Sierra Leone has been ranked as the third most vulnerable nation after Bangladesh and Guinea Bissau to adverse effects of climate change. Vulnerable populations have low capacity to adapt to climate change; and the rural populations will be the most affected because of their high dependence on rain-fed agriculture and natural resource-based livelihoods.

Irresponsible and misguided logging prescriptions are not only bad public policy but are also likely to degrade the ecosystem functions of our national forests, increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and impacting other resource values.

Neini Chiefdom in the Koinadugu District where the Bintumani Mountain is located, is considered the worst affected area in the country by these rampant and indiscriminate timber logging.

The once natural and beautiful forests at the foothills of the Bintumani Mountain have been destroyed.

The Alkalia Village in Neini Chiefdom was referred to as, “Kuranko London” because of its cool winter like weather.

Most early tourists who came to Sierra Leone decided to settle there all because of its beautiful weather condition.

But unfortunately, today, it has become the opposite of its past glory. It has almost been transformed into a desert landscape as the weather has become very hot.

Meanwhile, the entire Koinadugu District hasn’t escaped the brutality of these indiscriminate logging.

To make matters worse for the district, those heavy-duty trucks carrying timbers have contributed to destroying the road network.

Local residents say the loggers aren’t replanting the trees after cutting them.

Yeliboa, an island community in the Samu Chiefdom, is already experiencing the effects of climate change and is gradually being submerged under water.

Environmentalists said logging activities have numerous impacts on aquatic systems in the Sierra Leone . “The end result of logged landscapes is a highly altered forest system which creates significant problems related to erosion, sedimentation and altered stream flow patterns.”

They said that logging removes large trees that normally fall into streams and provide shelter and thermal cover, raises water temperatures and degrades the chemical and ecological conditions and food webs that fish need to survive.

They said that logging activities has a devastating effect of the health of the soils of the forest, result to global warming through removing significant sources of sequestered carbon; alter the natural structure of a forest by changing the amount of downed woody material, the incidence of snags or standing dead trees with cavities that provide wildlife habitat, and reducing the canopy cover of the immediate area, with the result of a homogenized or less diverse forest structure; the creation of roads, along with the intense activity conducted throughout a logging operation, greatly increases the possibility of the introduction of non-native species into areas where they have previously not existed; and increases the likelihood of the introduction and spread of lethal tree diseases through a variety of methods – stumps left behind after logging operations have a much higher incidence of infection than do living trees.