1 - Convictions of forest loss in policy and ecological science

Summary

Visions of forest loss

Guinée's present national forestry plan suggests that Kissidougou's landscape is degrading fast:

The opinion, quasi-general, is that … the areas … north of Macenta, Gueckedou, Kissidougou will soon be no more than a vast poor savanna, the [forest] islands and gallery forests still present at risk of being rapidly destroyed.

(République de Guinée 1988: 31)

A French forestry advisory team describes the forest which policy-makers consider to have been lost:

The region of Kissidougou was covered by a deciduous forest of Khaya sp., Chlorophora sp., Antiaris africana, Afzelia africana, Ceiba pentandra, Triplochiton scleroxyllon …

(Estève et al. 1989: 181)

Many modern studies which have informed environmental and rural development projects in the region think that this extensive forest cover has been lost within the past 50 years; within the lifetime of the region's present inhabitants. Thus we read that:

Around 1945, the forest, according to the elders, reached a limit 30 km north of Kissidougou town. Today, its northern limit is found at the level of Gueckedou- Macenta, thus having retreated about 100 km … This deforestation is essentially the result of human action.

(Ponsart-Dureau 1986: 9–10)

Or:

In the green belts which surround the villages, one finds the relics of original primary forests. The value of these biotypes in the heart of a nearly 100% degraded environment is inestimable. One finds no individual of [characteristic savanna tree species] more than 35 years old … supporting the thesis that the site has burned systematically only since then.

(Green 1991: 10–11)