Editor's Choice * Health law keeps 2.5 million young adults insured * Analysis: Can Zynga break free from Facebook? * Charges to cell phone bills have limited protection * Study endorses HPV testing for all women over 30 * ABB to power Facebook data center in Arctic Circle * U.S. offshore drillers need new safety approach * Ohio Senate sets aside "heartbeat" abortion bill * Comment: Energy bill beneficiary redefines green * Video: Pigeon-power seen as model for drones * Slideshow: Animals around the world More Reuters Results for: "collection africa forest walls" * Travel Picks: Ten top new hotels around the world Sat, May 31 2008 Follow Reuters * Facebook * Twitter * RSS * YouTube Read 1. Deal reached to avert government shutdown | Video 15 Dec 2011 1 2. "Batman" star roughed up in bid to visit Chinese blind 15 Dec 2011 2 3. Rivals pounce on Gingrich at last Iowa debate 3:31am EST 3 4. World stocks rise from 3-week low | Video 3:24am EST 4 5. Special Report: The masterminds of the Olympus coverup 1:46am EST 5 Discussed * 238 Ron Paul gains ground, further stirring Republicans * 134 Insight: The day Europe lost patience with Britain * 102 Supreme Court to decide Arizona immigration law Watched * Want a holiday tax cut? Want a holiday tax cut? Thu, Dec 15 2011 * Business in Congress may remain unfinished Business in Congress may remain unfinished Fri, Dec 9 2011 * Obama: U.S. needs payroll tax cut, recovery fragile Obama: U.S. needs payroll tax cut, recovery fragile Mon, Dec 5 2011 Africa looks to vast forests for carbon credit

(Reuters) - They inhabit a polluted part of Ivory Coast's main city with few jobs and a swelling population, but residents of Abidjan's slums have a rare respite: a stretch of pristine rainforest.
From their wooden shacks and unpainted concrete houses by motorways on the edge of Banco National Park, the millions who live in north Abidjan need no lesson on its worth.
"This forest is a great thing," said textile worker Sebastien Coulibaly, 35, in front of the sky-scraping green mass of vines and broccoli-shaped trees.
"It helps us to breathe better -- we live at ease because of it. Sometimes we walk our children there. We must protect it, because our planet will be nothing without forests."
Logging, farming and armed conflict still threaten Africa's jungles, which include the Congo Basin, the world's second largest after the Amazon, but analysts are hopeful.
A new global study on illegal logging by London's Chatham House think-tank on Wednesday found that it had halved in Cameroon, once one of the worst sources of illicit timber, since 2002, a decline of twice the global average [ID:nLDE66E0XJ].
Earlier this year the European Union signed deals with Ghana, Cameroon and Congo Republic to tighten restrictions on logging, ahead of an EU ban on illegally harvested timber that was passed this month and takes effect in 2012.
"We've dared to sanction firms, from withdrawing permits to big fines," said Cameroon Forest Minister Elvis Ngolle.
Logging bans don't directly address forest loss from other threats such as agriculture, but officials are hoping that a potential money spinner -- carbon offsets -- will.
"EXPECTATIONS HIGH"
A U.N. scheme to reduce emissions from deforestation or degradation (REDD) has enabled Indonesia, which houses the world's third biggest forest but is being deforested by palm oil and timber firms, to get $1 billion from Norway in May to revoke those firms' forestry licenses.
Deforestation makes up a fifth of world CO2 emissions and the REDD fund is worth a total of $4 billion so far.
Unlike Asia, African states have been slow to capitalize on climate aid -- they account for 2 percent of developing nation carbon projects. But many hope to change that.
An African Development Bank fund was established in 2008 for the Congo basin, a forest of half a billion acres (200 million hectares) spanning nine countries and storing, the bank says, 25-30 billion tonnes of carbon, which currently trades at 14 euros per tonne in Europe.
The fund aims to harmonize forest tax, share ecological data, cooperate on policing and sponsor community projects that encourage forest protection, like honey-making.
"Expectations are extremely high that this will allow us to preserve the forest, restore what's been degraded and pay these countries for their ecological services," Patrice Wadja, the fund's operations officer, told Reuters.
Gabon's President Ali Bongo seeks to be first in line. He has banned raw wood exports and in May set up a climate council that must come up with a REDD plan for the 80 percent of its original forest that remains before December's climate talks in Cancun.
FOREST TO FARMS
Despite the challenges, experts think Africa's forests have at least as good a chance as Brazil or Indonesia.
The rate of forest destruction is generally slower: 0.16 percent a year in the Congo Basin, compared with 11 percent in Indonesia, Wadja said, because Central Africa has been largely spared large-scale clearing for agriculture.
West Africa's deforestation is much higher, driven by logging and clearing to plant cash crops, especially cocoa, a topic so sensitive that Reuters could not get permission to visit some forests in top grower Ivory Coast.
"At independence, we had 16 million hectares of forest. We today have 6 million -- the lost area is now all farms," said Ivorian forest and water technician Yamani Soro.
Improving yields with fertilizer and pesticides is key, although reforms have been blocked by Ivory Coast's post-civil war political crisis.
Drier nations in the semi-desert Sahel belt with scant forest are meanwhile planning to plant trees. Presidents from Senegal to Djibouti agreed in Chad last month to build a "green wall" thousands of miles long with IMF funds.
But even as Africa curbs illicit logging and plants trees, another threat looms: Asian palm oil companies are eyeing Africa's forests to feed their growing populations. Liberia has signed deals with two and China on Thursday proposed a vast project in Democratic Republic of Congo.
"The big unknown are the Chinese," said conservationist Terese Hart who has worked in DRC for decades. "They are looking at the interior for exploitation, including palm."
(Additional reporting by Tansa Musa and Fonka Mutta in Yaounde, Christian Tsoumou in Brazzaville and Betel Miarom in N'Djamena)

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0 comments to "Editor's Choice * Health law keeps 2.5 million young adults insured * Analysis: Can Zynga break free from Facebook? * Charges to cell phone bills have limited protection * Study endorses HPV testing for all women over 30 * ABB to power Facebook data center in Arctic Circle * U.S. offshore drillers need new safety approach * Ohio Senate sets aside "heartbeat" abortion bill * Comment: Energy bill beneficiary redefines green * Video: Pigeon-power seen as model for drones * Slideshow: Animals around the world More Reuters Results for: "collection africa forest walls" * Travel Picks: Ten top new hotels around the world Sat, May 31 2008 Follow Reuters * Facebook * Twitter * RSS * YouTube Read 1. Deal reached to avert government shutdown | Video 15 Dec 2011 1 2. "Batman" star roughed up in bid to visit Chinese blind 15 Dec 2011 2 3. Rivals pounce on Gingrich at last Iowa debate 3:31am EST 3 4. World stocks rise from 3-week low | Video 3:24am EST 4 5. Special Report: The masterminds of the Olympus coverup 1:46am EST 5 Discussed * 238 Ron Paul gains ground, further stirring Republicans * 134 Insight: The day Europe lost patience with Britain * 102 Supreme Court to decide Arizona immigration law Watched * Want a holiday tax cut? Want a holiday tax cut? Thu, Dec 15 2011 * Business in Congress may remain unfinished Business in Congress may remain unfinished Fri, Dec 9 2011 * Obama: U.S. needs payroll tax cut, recovery fragile Obama: U.S. needs payroll tax cut, recovery fragile Mon, Dec 5 2011 Africa looks to vast forests for carbon credit"