The conservation of the forest resources of eastern Africa: past influences, present practices and future needs - Biogeography and Ecology of the Rain Forests of Eastern Africa - page 302

imber values, it is sill indicaive of the pattens of
use of closed forest. The quesion of rules gov-
erning fuelwood exracion is diicult; theorei-
cally, all collecion and extracion requires a
permit for which a fee should be charged. At a
district level people talk of 'customary rights for
minor produce' but these are not officially
recognised naionally. In pracice there is little
conrol or monitoring of exracion, especially
when this involves dry wood. Field staff numbers
are totally inadequate to allow any checking of
such extracion. Cuting of irewood may be dis-
couraged in some places, but in others the prac-
ice is rampant. In Zanzibar, the collecion of
irewood is much more closely conrolled, as the
supply to townships from coral rag forest forms a
considerable commercial undertaking (Swai,
1983). On the mainland, forests close to major
settlements are heavily disturbed, charcoal pits
being common in Rau Forest near Moshi
(Rodgers, 1983) and Pugu and Pande Forests
near Dar es Salaam (Howell, 1981).
There is a lack of quanitaive studies on he
magnitude and effects of fuelwood exracion on
the forests themselves. Pressures are con-
cenrated around the periphery of orest, and cut-
ing may be severe enough to allow grass to
develop and fires to enter and prevent forest
regrowth as, for example, in Pande Forest near
Dar es Salaam.
Pole exracion or house construcion has been
documented for lowland Tanzania forests by Hall
& Rodgers (1986). Extracion involves the cuting
of sraight stems, oten the saplings of canopy
rees. Pressures near the forest periphery may be
high enough to remove up to 80% of all stems of
favoured species, with obvious implicaions on
canopy renewal.

exploitaion by a mixture ofmechanical and hand-
sawn logging.
Kelsey & Langton (1984) describe pit-sawing
taking place in Arabuk-Sokoke coastal forest.
This felling was inside a nature reserve and
occurred after a Presidenial decree prohibiing
indigenous tree cuting. Similar illegal exracion
is taking place in the forests along the Tana River
(Marsh, 1978).
Of concern is the realisaion that since the
mechanical logging ban in the Usambaras, there
has been a massive increase in pit-saw exploi-
taion, largely by immigrant Wahehe, but funded
by local businessmen. Most exploitaion was in
the public forest land and is illegal. This is aided
by the poor conrol exercised by local Disrict
Council forest staff. In 1990, however, 'we have
discovered more incidences of illicit pit-sawing in
so-called Catchment Forest Reseve than in the
public lands. In all cases authorizaion to harvest
has been provided in some orm, and "poeic
license" given to actual harvesing levels'
(Wardell, 1990 in lit.). Planks presumably feed
the market left after mechanised logging stopped
(D. A. Wardell & I. Mwasha, personal communi-
caion, 1989). In Matundu Forest Reserve in the
Uzungwa Mountains mechanised logging was
stopped in 1990 and pit-sawing licences given to
deal with 'badly fallen logs'. Local comment sug-
gests a great deal more imber is coming out than
allowed for under these cleaning-up operaions.
Throughout the ropics there is now renewed
interest in developing greater sustainabiliy oflog-
ging evergreen forests, both by improved silvi-
cultural systems (Bruening, 1989; Howard, 1990)
and by better logging management (e.g. Poore,
1988). However, little of this iniiaive ilters down
to ield operaions in easten Africa as natural
orest research and silvicultural capabiliies are
limited and there is virtually no operaional con-
rol at field level.

Hunting and raditional produt extration

Whilst there is a growing body of data on the
general values of forests for food and medicinal
products (see above, p. 297), there is little quani-
taive inormaion of the amounts extracted
(Fleuret, 1979, 1980; Mtotomwema, 1982). Fur-
ther, there are few natural forests protected well
enough to serve as reference cenres against

Pole and Jue/wood extration

Rough esimates from easten Africa suggest that
over 90% of all wood harvesing is for fuelwood
(e.g. FAO, 1982a, b; Openshaw, 1984). Whilst
this is biased in favour of woodlands with lower