Forest Watch is launched.

• Author: Mattoon, Ashley
• Position: Brief Article

The World Resources Institute (WRI) has launched a new program to provide, for the first time, a source of comprehensive and reliable information about the condition of the world's forests and the forces that threaten them.

Called Global Forest Watch (GFW), the program combines high-tech digital and satellite data with on-the-ground observations and research to produce detailed maps and reports. The program uses a network of nongovernmental groups, universities, and research organizations, to monitor development in forested regions. It is "a tool for local people in some of the most remote places on Earth to reach out and let us know how our forests are faring," says the program's director, Dirk Bryant. Funded by government, corporate, and foundation grants, the GFW now has 75 partners in 7 countries. By 2005, the project's organizers hope to have established chapters in all of the 21 countries that together make up 80 percent of the world's remaining large tracts of intact forest.

The program stems from a 1997 WRI initiative which found that over half of the world's original forest cover is gone and only 40 percent of remaining area qualifies as "frontier forest"--large tracts of ecologically intact natural forests. Based on these findings, GFW is focusing its initial efforts on countries where there is still hope to protect frontier forests. The program has already released reports on three of these priority countries: Cameroon, Gabon, and Canada.

Cameroon and Gabon include parts of the second largest contiguous rainforest in the world after the Amazon Basin, and this area is under severe pressure from the encroachment of logging, agriculture and other forms of development. In Cameroon, half of the country's original forest cover has been lost and at least 20 percent of what remains is degraded or secondary forest. In Gabon, 20 to 31 percent of the country's original forest has been converted to farmland or other land use. While the leading cause of deforestation is agricultural clearing, the reports emphasize that logging is often the initial catalyst of forest loss...