Making a canoe from wawa (Triplochiton scleroxylon) in Asenanyo Forest Reserve, Ghana. W Hawthorne

African forests, whether cleared for agriculture or felled for timber, have long served as a reservoir of land, fuel, fodder and food, to compensate in times of drought or other disaster, and to meet immediate demands. For centuries, and over long cycles of use, patterns of cropland and forest, farm and fallow, may have been stable. Less than a quarter of the land now remains under forest and woodlands, while annual deforestation exceeds 4 million hectares. The rate of decrease is highest in the moist deciduous forest zone, critically important to local and regional climatic stability. As revealed in this newsletter, even the few remaining large blocks of forest in Equatorial Africa, hitherto less affected, are increasingly threatened. These, together with the heavily depleted areas of rainforest in West Africa, and the fragmented areas remaining in East Africa, hold unique resources of biodiversity, of global significance. Africa, with some of the world's poorest people and economies, has some of its richest biomes.

Africa's dry forests and woodlands, important to very large numbers of people, have also been severely reduced, and over large parts of the dry and semi-arid zones the recuperative power of the vegetation has been virtually destroyed. Attempts at intensive introduction of exotic trees and other crops have had limited success. In these circumstances also, the genetic resources of the indigenous woodland ecosystems, including their important soil micro-organisms, may offer the only sustainable means to restore productivity to heavily degraded lands. This approach requires levels of scientific expertise and research of a duration which are beyond the resources of most African governments alone.

Human population increase is commonly seen as the greatest single threat to biodiversity conservation at the global level, but recent studies published by the International African Institute (Africa Vol. 66, No. 1, 1966) indicate the need for care in interpreting the relationships between people and biodiversity at local levels. Articles in that issue illustrate the need for improved understanding of ways in which human action may already have served to enhance biodiversity, "either by direct protection of valued resources or through triggering ecological processes that have advantageous outcomes." The recognition that conservation is essentially related to the perceived value of the forests within the country concerned, and particularly within the communities closest to the forests, is also gaining ground. Undervaluation has produced the short-term views of governments, timber exploiters and local people, concerned with immediate opportunities and needs, which have resulted in the progressive depletion of the resource. More positive involvement of the rural people, particularly women, in the conservation and development of the forest resources is receiving increasing support from both official and non-governmental aid organisations, as shown by contributions to this newsletter.

More information on forest composition, and on functional interactions within the ecosystems, is essential to ensure that the harvesting and management systems are truly sustainable. These include some products which do not enter the formal markets, even at local level, as well as broader environmental benefits, of regional and global value. The inventories, research and strategic conservation planning, reported in this issue, from Ghana and Uganda, are examples of British-based assistance which provides a model for wider and more prolonged action. Ghana's experience in attempts at sustainable forest management illustrates other vital needs for international aid. National inventory of the reserved forests has revealed both the urgent action needed to conserve the genetic resources of the prime timber species and also the possibilities for increased sustainable harvesting of a wider range of the lesser known timbers. Like most other African countries Ghana is heavily dependent on commodities for the export earnings needed to fund development. Timber has been its third highest source of export earnings after cocoa and minerals. To maintain that vital source of revenue while conserving the genetic resources and biodiversity in the forests requires a shift, from the export of large volumes of prime timbers, to added value products, designed to maximise the return from both the highest price timbers, and those hitherto in less demand.

The silvicultural practices to sustain both timber production and conservation values in the forests are compatible with such a shift to more varied and selective harvesting. The missing elements, which are beyond the power of the national government alone, are access to markets, and the development of national skills and infrastructure, such as drying kilns and processing equipment. Recent studies of future trends indicate that there are end-use niches in which tropical timber products could compete successfully even at higher raw material prices. Trade developments to increase processing in the country, and generate higher values per unit of timber, could assist forest conservation, but this strategy is itself dependent on increased international assistance with the appropriate investment programmes, and receptive markets.

The deep concern over the value of tropical forests, as perceived in Europe and the USA, will not achieve the desired improvements in forest conservation and management unless translated into real benefits to the people in the countries concerned. Recent moves to improve systems for tracking tropical timber in international trade could encourage the improved practices essential to conservation, but only if they are accompanied by the necessary investment programmes, to restore and enhance the value of the forests to the people, and to support sustainable forest management.

This newsletter contains some good news out of Africa - of work in progress as well as recognition of more urgent action needed. Disaster aid will continue to have an immediate priority, but unless more substantial action is taken to restore the sustainable productivity of many areas of degraded forest land, and to halt further damaging deforestation, deprivation, and the incidence of disasters, will continue to increase. The help of British scientists, the deployment of both official and nongovernmental aid, and the positive role of the private sector through trade and associated assistance, must be linked to the greatest extent possible, to maximise the total contribution to conservation and productive management.

As advocated in the issue of the Journal of the International African Institute cited above, social and biological scientists need to collaborate not only for substantive reasons, to achieve improved understanding of the human elements in biodiversity management at local level, but also to help establish within the agencies, and their constituencies of supporters in the industrialised world, a sense of realism, in socio-political terms, reflecting "the priorities and concerns of the immediate custodians of the continent's biodiversity resources". The UK Tropical Forest Forum is centrally concerned with these aspects of improved understanding and collaboration.