History

Forest management and silviculture

The Portuguese colonial authorities earmarked for conservation a number of areas thought to offer little agricultural or economic potential. In Angola, government support for conservation efforts grew as interest in conservation quickened within the country, a trend that continued into the 1970s. The first major wildlife inventories also date from this same period.

Forest plantations were established during colonial times, especially during the 1960s and 1970s, mostly by the rail companies and paper-making firms. The wood from these plantations was used to produce firewood to fuel the locomotives and raw material for paper-making. This effort was paralleled by afforestation to produce fuelwood for local people and to protect the watersheds. After independence in 1975, most private plantations were abandoned following the decline of the paper industry and the use of other fuel sources to power the locomotives.

A number of institutions were active in natural resource management from 1955 to 1972. The Nature Conservation Council was set up in 1955 to act as an advisory committee in areas such as land use and the utilization of plant and animal wildlife. Nature conservation policy management was at that time under the Veterinary Services Division (parks and hunting) and the Agricultural Services Division (forests, inland waters and land). The Repartiçâo técnica de protecçâo à fauna under the veterinary service was directly responsible for wildlife conservation throughout the country, and also for management of Angola¿s national parks, reserves and controlled hunting areas. In September 1969, the Liga para a protecçâo da natureza was set up to improve natural resource protection. As of 1972, management became the sole responsibility of the Reparticçâo técnica (Decree Law n°22/72 dos Parques nacionais of 22 February 1972). The National Directorate for the Conservation of Nature (Direcçâo nacional da canservaçâo da natureza, DNACO), established in 1977 with Decree Law n° 43/77 subsequently assumed these management responsibilities.

Wood production began to decline after 1975. The forestry sector has been greatly affected by the (still ongoing) civil war which broke out in 1976. Almost all processing plants have been destroyed, with the worst damage occurring during the latest phase of the war.

Despite this, a forest plantation programme with public participation, designed to supply fuelwood and other products, was launched in the early 1980s, but the programme was soon abandoned for various reasons including lack of maintenance. The civil war made it impossible to maintain these plantations, though the need for fuelwood and timber continued to grow. In 1986, a forestry planning support project was formulated with UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) and FAO assistance to define a sound sectorial policy and identify priority action targets. A 1989 plan to plant 250 000 trees to provide shade for crops and protect soils from erosion was also formulated, but never implemented.

In the early 1990s, Angola changed over from the centrally planned economic system introduced after independence to a free-market system. And once the civil war had subsided in 1991, new conservation programmes were launched in the country. The desertification control project in Tombua in the early 1990s and the reforestation programme launched by the IDF in 1993 to rehabilitate degraded forest areas are two examples. The National Forests Action Plan was finalized in 1994. But the social and political situation took a turn for the worse in 1998 with the resumption of the war. The central plateau is the main theatre of operations, but few areas of the country have managed to escape unscathed. The forest plantation programme and the forestry sector as a whole are at a complete standstill, and the rate of reforestation is virtually nil for lack of resources and infrastructure and the persistence of security problems.

last updated: Tuesday, November 24, 2009