By Septimus Senessie in Kono
The district forestry official attached to the ministry of agriculture, forestry and food security in the eastern Kono district has called on government to stop the “uncontrollable and illegal timber logging” in the district. Thomas Dickson Kallon told Politico that there was massive timber logging activity taking place in the district, and stressed that if government failed to heed their call for a ban, “in the next five years, the country is bound to face with serious environmental problems.” He claimed that “the mad rush” for timber had already affected over 50% of forest reserves in the Nimikoro, Nimiyama, Ngorama Kono, Fiama, Sandor and Soa chiefdoms. Kallon insisted that the forestry division at the ministry of agriculture was operating under “serious difficulty” with few personnel and logistics to enable them function effectively and efficiently. He said they were planning to establish “district nursing banks where the district will come and collect seedlings for voluntary tree planting across the 14-chiefdoms of Kono.” The district chairman of the Forest Resource Management Union (FRMU) in charge of Timber operations in Kono district, John Fasuluku, also confirmed that the issue of timber logging was on the increase. He said that between January and February this year Kono district had supplied over 30 tonnes of timbers to Freetown, and accused the Sierra Leone Timber Association (SLTA) of not doing enough. He alleged that between 2011 and 2012 alone the association collected over Le 5.9 billion from licenses on timber logging. Fasuluku maintained that they were told by the association that the money was meant for “afforesting deforested land” in the country. He revealed that SLTA had earlier promised that it would be planting about 30,000 trees annually in the district but that there were no signs of any such project.
