Forest communities in Cross River State have expressed worry that almost 60 per cent of Ekuri Community Forest project, in Akamkpa Council of the state, is gone.

Accordingly, a Non-governmental Organisation (NGO) in the state, Worthy Association for Tackling Environmental Waste (WATER), has joined Ekuri people to raise the alarm that if the state government, the international community and the general public do nothing urgent, in next two years, the remaining 40 per cent of the forest will be wiped away.

The Programme Coordinator of WATER, Edwin Ogar, in a statement, yesterday, said: “Ekuri Forest, as we all know, has had a good history of conservation over the years, making it the best communally managed forest in the whole of West Africa.

“It attracted international recognition by United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) in 2004, recognising Ekuri as biodiversity hotspot, as well as the community’s ability to use the forest to ensure poverty is reduced, even as the forest is managed properly.”

“But at the rate a private company, Ezemac International Limited, and others are going, “in less than two years, the forest would be gone, irrespective of the size, because, already, the other side of the forest on old Ekuri axis is almost gone.

“Logging there was done by more than 100 individual loggers, and the community did not have the capacity to stop them.

“Ekuri is a minority community that can do little or nothing to stop them, because the financial and technical capacity, in terms of raising resources to sustain such a matter, is not there.” (The Guardian)