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| logging track, photo credits WCS |
A study published in July reports that poachers are using logging roads to access remote areas of rain forest prey on endangered species central chimpanzees
(Pan troglodytes troglodytes) and western lowland gorillas (
Gorilla gorilla gorilla). The study published in
Frontiers in Forest and Global Change looked at intact forest located in Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park and an adjacent sustainable logging area in Democratic Republic of Congo, to assess the impact of human activity on the species' habitat.
The comparison showed little effect on the number of individuals in the undisturbed and logged areas, but changes in plant ecology altered the apes foraging behaviors. Previously studies have shown that gorillas are more able to adapt to disturbed landscapes than chimpanzees because they have a more varied diet, and they are not as territorial as chimps. One change the researchers noted in chimpanzee behavior is that they build their sleeping nests closer to the ground in logged areas.
Central Africa's once vast, pristine rain forests were protected by their remoteness, but that has changed perhaps forever. Roads cleared for logging now snake through the farthest reaches of dense rain forest. Estimates are that Central Africa has lost a tenth of its undisturbed forest landscapes, and the length of roads in the Congo Basin has increased two and half times since 2003. With the roads have come greedy humans exploiting natural resources including poachers illegally killing forest elephants
(Loxodonta cyclotis) for their ivory. Between 2002 and 2011 researchers observed a 62% drop in the population of of their cousins, savanna elephants.
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| forest elephants dig for minerals, courtesy USF&W |
The park, which is part of a UNESCO world heritage site that stretches across Cameroon, Central African Republic and DRC, and its natural inhabitants face other threats. In 2018 the Congo government invited oil companies to explore a block of land that overlaps park boundaries. The French company, Total, holds the Koli sector concession, which overlaps, but also contains valuable peat lands in the Cuvette Basin. French researchers have been advising Total Foundation, the company's non-profit arm to pivot towards forest conservation and renovation. They’ve proposed that Total could leave undeveloped the Koli and Mokelé-Mbembé blocks as a way of locking in carbon. According to the company's own information, it plans to invest $100 million a year starting in 2020 for the “preservation of forests, mangroves and degraded lands. Reports from conservationists say the government continues to urge Total to explore for oil reserves. Congo's economy is heavily dependent on resource extraction.
David Morgan, a conservationist with Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo and lead author of the study said oil exploration does not fit with Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park's world heritage status. Still, the park is one of the best protected and funded in central Africa and conservationists want to keep it that way, but the research shows it is vulnerable to the scourge of poaching. Moran added, "You can’t let places like this become open to poachers. We have to do all we can to protect [against] that.”
