Strive for alternative source of energy to save forests

Efforts to protect and conserve natural forests in the country seem not to be paying off as reports indicate that there is destruction in almost every part of the country.

A recent report from Coast Region, for example, indicates that about 90,000 hectares of natural forest disappear every year, through illegal trade in forest products including logging, charcoal making and lumbering.

And as if that is not bad enough, the report reveals that about 500,000 hectares of natural vegetation have been destroyed in the region in less than a decade. What is worse, reforestation efforts using modern tree species which mature fast do not match the rate at which the natural forests are decimated.

The situation in Coast Region is but a glimpse of what is happening in other parts of the country in relation to destruction of natural forests.

The environmental destruction is a result of uncontrolled harvesting of natural forests, laxity in observing regulations governing the protection of forests and other natural resources and irresponsibility of those vested with the responsibility to oversee sustainable conservation of such resources.