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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Sudan
Index
Since the early 1900s, extensive areas of woodland and forest
have been converted to agricultural use. Large amounts of land
classifiable as woodland have been cleared in the development of
large-scale mechanized rainfed farming in Ash Sharqi and Al Awsat
states, and smaller amounts in Aali an Nil and southern Kurdufan
states. Although Sudan had a large quantity of natural forest, by
1991 much of it remained almost totally unexploited. In the late
1970s, FAO estimated that the country's forests and woodlands
totaled about 915,000 square kilometers, or 38.5 percent of the
land area. This figure was based on the broad definition of
forest and woodland as any area of vegetation dominated by trees
of any size. It also included an unknown amount of cleared land
that was expected to have forest cover again "in the foreseeable
future." An estimate in the mid-1970s by the Forestry
Administration, however, established the total forest cover at
about 584,360 square kilometers, or 24.6 percent of the country's
land area. More than 129,000 square kilometers (about onequarter ) of this amount were located in the dry and semiarid
regions of northern Sudan. These forests were considered valuable
chiefly as protection for the land against desertification, but
they also served as a source of fuel for pastoral peoples in
those regions. The continued population pressure on the land has
resulted in an accelerated destruction of forestland,
particularly in the Sahel, because charcoal remained the
predominant fuel. The loss of forestland in the marginal areas of
the north, accelerated by mechanized farming and by drought,
resulted in a steady encroachment of the Sahara southward at
about ten kilometers a year in the 1980s.
The productive forest extended below the zone of desert
encroachment to the southern border. It included the savanna
woodlands of the central and western parts of the country, which
were dominated by various species of acacia, among them Acacia
senegal, the principal source of gum arabic. Gum arabic was
Sudan's second largest export product, accounting for 80 percent
of the world's supply. It is nontoxic, noncalorific, and
nonpolluting, having no odor or taste. It is used widely in
industry for products ranging from mucilage (for postage stamps)
to foam stabilizers to excipient in medicines and dietetic foods.
In 1986-87 Sudan produced more than 40,000 tons marketed through
the Gum Arabic Company. In the late 1980s the drought severely
curtailed production.
The principal area of productive forest and woodland,
however, was in the more moist southern part of the country.
Covering an area of more than 200,000 square kilometers and
consisting mainly of broadleaf deciduous hardwoods, it remained
largely undeveloped in 1990. Timber processed by government mills
in the area included mahogany for furniture and other hardwoods
for railroad ties, furniture, and construction. Domestic
production of timber fell far short of local needs in the 1970s,
and as much as 80 percent of the domestic requirement was met by
imports.
Plantations established by the government Forestry
Administration in the mid-1970s totaled about 16,000 hectares of
hardwoods and 500 to 600 hectares of softwoods, most were in the
south. They included stands of teak and in the higher elevations
of the Imatong Mountains, exotic pines. Eucalyptus stands had
also been established in the irrigated agricultural areas to
serve as windbreaks and to supply firewood. A gradually
increasing forest reserve has been developed, and by the mid1970s it covered more than 13,000 square kilometers. Additional
protection of forest and woodland areas was provided by several
national parks and game reserves that encompassed 54,000 square
kilometers in the mid-1970s.
Since 1983 the civil war virtually halted forestry production
in southern Sudan, from which came the overwhelming amount of
forestry products. According to FAO estimates, however, in 1987
Sudan produced 41,000 cubic meters of sawn timber, 1,906,000
cubic meters of other industrial roundwood, and more than 18
million cubic meters of firewood. Each of these categories showed
a substantial increase from production levels in the 1970s. The
insatiable demand was for charcoal, the principal cooking fuel,
and the one major forest product not dependent upon the south.
Because wood of any kind could be turned to charcoal, the acacia
groves of the Sahel have been used extensively for this purpose,
with a resulting rapid advance of deforestation. To improve
government forestry conservation and management policy, as well
as the issue of land use, in 1990-91 plans were underway to
establish a forestry resource conservation project, funded and
cofinanced by several international development agencies and
donors.
Data as of June 1991
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