830K Ha Cameroon Tract Has Elephants, Gorillas, Chimps - And 30 Day Reprieve Before Logging Begins

n 830,000-hectare tract of rainforest in Cameroon has been granted a 30-day reprieve from logging following a 4-week exploratory expedition that turned up large populations of lowland gorillas, forest elephants, mandrills, and chimpanzees, according to expedition leader Mike Korchinsky, founder of the conservation group Wildlife Works.

The Cameroonian government has given Wildlife Works, which pioneered the first forest-based carbon project in Kenya, 30 days to come up with a competitive proposal to logging. The group is now scrambling to secure necessary funding to finance the early stages of the project.

"We have buy in from the local community, including Baka pygmies who depend on this forest," Korchinsky told mongabay.com. "This is a beautiful rainforest that houses a lot of wildlife and stores a lot of carbon. It provides important services to the 10,000 or so people who live in the area and losing it to loggers would leave them a lot poorer."

Ngoyla-Mintom borders the Republic of Congo and serves as a corridor of habitat between three national parks in Cameroon, Gabon and Republic of Congo. Conservation groups managed to hold off logging in the area for nearly a decade but failed to deliver on promises to develop ecotourism and sustainable industries. Facing a credit crunch from falling commodity prices, the Cameroon government last year said it would divide Ngoyla-Mintom into 9 blocks to be sold off to loggers. The subsidiary of an Australian mining firm, Cam Iron, recently signed a deal to mine iron southeast of the area.

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http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0617-cameroon.html