Forestry and Sustainable Development

30 min

Let's begin

On a ridge in Nyungwe National Park, a suspension bridge hangs above the treetops, and visitors pay to walk across it and look down on a forest that loggers could once have cut for timber. Below them, the same forest stores carbon, shelters chimpanzees and feeds streams that flow both west towards the Congo and east towards the Nile. A forest can earn money by being cut, or by being kept standing. How can Africa use its forests for development today without using them up for tomorrow?

Definition

Sustainable development: development that meets the needs of people today without harming the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainable forest management: using forests so that their area, health and products last for ever, while they still provide income and benefits to people. Sustained yield: harvesting no more wood each year than the forest grows in that year.

How forests contribute to development

Contribution	How it helps	Example
Foreign exchange	Exports of logs, sawn timber, veneer and plywood earn money for imports	Timber from Gabon, Cameroon and the Republic of Congo
Employment	Jobs in felling, transport, sawmills, carpentry, charcoal and tourism	Sawmills and furniture makers in African towns
Raw materials for industry	Wood for sawmills, plywood, pulp and paper, furniture and construction	Pulp and paper mills supplied by plantations in Mpumalanga, South Africa
Energy	Firewood and charcoal for cooking	76% of Rwandan households cooked mainly with firewood in 2022 (NISR)
Tourism	Visitors pay to see forest wildlife and scenery	Chimpanzee tracking and the canopy walk in Nyungwe
Water catchment and soil protection	Forests feed rivers steadily and hold soil on slopes	Nyungwe feeds rivers of both the Nile and the Congo basins
Climate regulation	Trees store carbon and cool the local climate	The Congo Basin forest, a major carbon store
Food, medicine and other products	Honey, fruit, mushrooms, gum arabic, shea, cork and medicinal plants	Gum arabic from Sudan; cork from Morocco
Research and education	Forests are living laboratories for science	Research on primates in Nyungwe and Gishwati

Making forestry sustainable

Sustainable forestry must satisfy three goals at once (Figure 4). A forest that is cleared for quick profit fails the environment; a forest locked away from everyone may fail the people who depend on it for fuel and food. The aim is the overlap in the middle.

Sustained-yield harvesting: divide a forest into blocks and log one block a year, so each block has decades to regrow before it is cut again.
Value addition: process wood at home so that each tree earns more and creates more jobs. In 2010, Gabon banned the export of unprocessed logs, and a special economic zone for wood processing was built at Nkok, near Libreville.
Certification: independent bodies such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) check that a company logs legally and replants, and let it put a label on its timber; many buyers in Europe will pay more for it.
Landscape restoration: under the Bonn Challenge, Rwanda pledged to restore 2 million hectares of deforested and degraded land (Ministry of Environment). Across the Sahel, the African Union's Great Green Wall aims to restore a belt of land from Senegal to Djibouti.
Payments for keeping forests: schemes called REDD+ pay countries and communities for cutting less forest, because standing forests store carbon.
Ecotourism: tourism that earns money from forests while protecting them, as in Nyungwe.
Community forestry and agroforestry: local people manage and benefit from forests and grow their own trees, so they have a reason to protect them.
Alternative energy: gas, biogas, electricity and efficient stoves reduce the demand for wood.

Definition

Value addition: processing a raw product so that it sells for more, such as turning logs into plywood or furniture. Certification: an independent check that a product was produced legally and sustainably, shown by a label. Ecotourism: responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and benefits local people. Buffer zone: a strip of land around a protected area where limited use is allowed, which shields the protected area from direct pressure.

Worked example

Worked example 1: a sustained-yield plan (illustrative figures). A forest of 12,000 ha is to be logged on a 30-year felling cycle, cutting one block each year. How large should each year's block be?

Area per year = total area ÷ length of the cycle = 12,000 ÷ 30.
= 400 ha a year.
Conclusion: each block is left for 29 years after it is logged, giving the forest time to regrow before it is cut again.

Worked example

Worked example 2: the value of processing (illustrative figures). A company can export 1,000 m³ of logs at 250 US dollars per m³, or turn them into 450 m³ of plywood selling at 900 US dollars per m³. Which earns more, and by how much?

Logs: 1,000 × 250 = 250,000 US dollars.
Plywood: 450 × 900 = 405,000 US dollars.
Difference = 405,000 − 250,000 = 155,000 US dollars more for plywood, before the cost of running the mill.
Conclusion: processing at home earns more from the same trees and creates factory jobs, which is the reasoning behind Gabon's log export ban.

Warning

"Sustainable" does not mean "never cut". A sustainably managed forest is still harvested, but no faster than it regrows, and with care for soil, water, wildlife and people. In an "evaluate" answer, show both sides: the benefits forests bring when used, and the risks when they are over-used.

Tip

For "how can forestry promote sustainable development?" questions, organise your points under the three goals of Figure 4: environment (replanting, protected areas, certification), economy (value addition, ecotourism) and society (community forestry, alternative energy). Give a named example for each.

Enabel, the Belgian development agency: forestry and agroforestry management in Rwanda. Note how the people interviewed earn money from trees while keeping them growing.

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Practice

Define sustainable forest management and sustained yield.
Give five ways in which forests contribute to the development of African countries, with an example of each.
Explain why Gabon banned the export of unprocessed logs in 2010.
Describe how certification encourages sustainable forestry.
A forest of 9,000 ha is managed on a 25-year felling cycle. Calculate the area to be logged each year.
Explain how ecotourism in Nyungwe National Park supports both conservation and development.
Use Figure 4 to explain why clearing a forest for a quick profit is not sustainable.
"African countries should stop all logging in natural forests." Evaluate this view.

Show answersHide answers

Sustainable forest management: using forests so that their area, health and products last, while they still give income and benefits. Sustained yield: harvesting no more wood each year than the forest grows in that year.
Any five: foreign exchange (Gabon timber exports); jobs (sawmills, carpentry); raw materials (pulp mills in Mpumalanga); fuel (firewood in Rwanda); tourism (Nyungwe); water catchment (Nyungwe's rivers); climate regulation (Congo Basin); food and medicine (honey, gum arabic); research.
To make companies process the timber in Gabon, so that each tree earns more, more jobs are created at home, and fewer trees need to be cut for the same income.
An independent body checks that logging is legal, that the forest is replanted and that local people's rights are respected; certified timber carries a label that many buyers prefer and pay more for, so companies have a reason to manage well.
9,000 ÷ 25 = 360 ha a year.
Visitors pay fees, which fund protection and create jobs for guides, hotels and local people; this gives communities a reason to protect the forest instead of cutting it.
It meets only the economic goal: it destroys biodiversity, soil and water protection (environment) and takes away fuel, food and land rights from local people (society), so it lies outside the overlap.
For: natural forests hold irreplaceable biodiversity, water catchments and carbon. Against: timber earns foreign exchange and jobs, and controlled selective logging with certification can be sustainable. A judgement might be that logging should be controlled, not banned, with the most valuable forests fully protected.

1How forests contribute to development

2Making forestry sustainable

How forests contribute to development

Making forestry sustainable