The international Rainforest Action Network has issued an action alert concerning rainforests in Nigeria's Cross River State, home to an astounding variety of animals, including one third of Africa's primates and more than 1000 species of butterflies.
The Congo rainforest and Cross River State are the only places on Earth where the western lowland gorilla lives. Cross River State has more than 120 native species of plants and trees, including the beautiful, blood-red camwood, ironwood and several types of cedar and African mahogany.
Nigeria has logged 95% of its original forest land. The lush rainforest along the banks of the Cross River accounts for nearly half of what remains. In 1991, the government set much of this land aside as the Cross River National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary, a haven for the area's rare primates.
Park general manager Clement Ebin told Nigeria's Guardian newspaper that he was under pressure from big foreign timber companies to open the park to logging. Ebin is standing firm: "We are interested in protecting the entire ecosystem for the development of humanity. If you remove the forest, then the water goes, the biodiversity goes, and the gene pool diversity goes."
Unfortunately for the rainforest, Nigeria has a history of selling its natural resources to foreign companies wholesale. Royal Dutch Shell has been taking oil and natural gas profits out of Nigeria for decades. Its blend of power politics and big money culminated in the execution of activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others last November. There are 15 transnational logging companies, mainly from Europe and Asia, currently doing business in Nigeria.
The greatest threat to the rainforest of Cross River State is Western Metal Products Company (WEMPCO), a Hong Kong-based metal processing firm that has branched out into logging. WEMPCO's plan is to cut all the trees it can, make as much money as it can, then go back to its metal processing business.
In a previous logging operation in western Nigeria's Ogun State, WEMPCO cut down the big trees, and, in violation of its cutting agreement, the undersized trees as well, turning the region into a desert. WEMPCO also cut down large areas of forest outside of its concession.
Now WEMPCO has built a hardwood processing factory alongside Cross River without securing the necessary permits or conducting an environmental impact assessment. Upstream from the national park, the factory will release poison chemicals into the river, polluting the water supply of 300 down-river communities, and dumping toxins into the gorillas' sanctuary.
Responding to pressure from Nigerian environmental groups, WEMPCO produced an EIA after the plant was completed. The environmental groups rejected the EIA as a sham, and filed for an injunction against the company in federal court. The EIA, which the government has refused to make public, applies to 15.5 of 1400 sq km in the concession.