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Sudan
Forestry
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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