Wilderness lost

Australian researchers have found that about one tenth of the world's wilderness has been lost in the last twenty years. The lost area is over 3 million square kilometers and the losses have been greatest in South America (30%) and Africa (14%).

This is, unhappily, not a surprise. It's one of a series of recent studies that shows the increasing human dominance of the planet. Indeed, it's one of the less pessimistic. Taking the crude numbers it implies that some wilderness will last 200 years.

Paving the road to hell

Roads are a major problem for the planet. Globally, many new roads are built into rainforest to support logging or dam building. These roads start a process of exploitation that is hard to stop and that transforms habitats and provides access to poachers. Since 2000, for instance, 30,000 miles of new roads have been cut into African rainforests. It's no surprise that poachers have killed two thirds of the forest elephants in that same period.

The rainforests will not survive the combined pressures of logging, settlement and clearance for pasture and cropping that road-building makes possible. And many species will not survive the loss of their rainforest homes.

This has happened at extraordinary speed and there's no sign that it's slowing down. The G20 meeting last October argued for annual spending of $2T pa (that's $2 million million pa) on infrastructure in developing countries. Only a fraction of that is likely to be roads; but that's still a lot of roads (and railways, power stations, airports, etc.)

Most of the species that existed 100 years ago are still with us, though in much reduced numbers. Their habitats have been greatly reduced and many will be gone in much less than 100 years if development continues. For some threatened species a few dozen animals may survive in zoos and game reserves. Many will disappeared leaving no more than stuffed examples in museums, films, if we're lucky, DNA sequences in some database.

A tragic loss and little time left.

Uganda's forests in terminal decline?

What's the state of African forests? 

A recent article in New Scientist gives a dismal answer for Uganda. 

First the numbers. Between 1990 and 2009 forest cover fell from 24% to 10% and is still falling. At that rate it's probably down to 6% already and will all be gone by 2025.

But that estimate may be too optimistic. Many forest reserves look OK from the outside but in the forest squatters have cleared land and built homes, schools and churches. Many are solid, brick-built structures. The squatters are not planning to move on.

There's a quality issue too. Loggers, legal and illegal, have concentrated on native African hardwoods but reforestation - where it's occurred at all - has usually been with faster-growing softwood species like eucalyptus and pine.

And all this affects the wildlife. Deforestation, loss of native species, hunting, human defence of crops and the breaking up of large areas into a patchwork of forests and fields all make the wildlife move away. Those animals that stay lack food and face conflicts with the squatters. Conflicts that the humans are bound to win.

There are clearly two causes. One is land hunger due to population growth and human conflicts in both Uganda and its neighbours. The other is inadequate policing due to the usual mixture of limited resources and local corruption. Climate change is probably involved as well.

According to Forestry Commissioner Margaret Adata Uganda aims to get the squatters out of the forest and return forest cover to 1990 levels. Wildlife, she thinks, will follow.

I wish her well but time is terribly short.