WOODS HOLE, Mass., June 8 (UPI) -- Industrial logging is damaging Central Africa's pristine forests and threatening an important ecosystem, the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts says.
Central African rain forests are being trampled by an expansion of industrial logging and the accompanying proliferation of roads, the researchers report in the June issue of Science.
Satellite images from 1976 to 2003 "provides clear evidence that the rain forests of Central Africa are not as remote as they once were, a bad thing for many of the species that call it home," said Nadine Laporte, a Woods Hole scientist.
Researchers found that more than 30 percent of the forests were being logged in Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, the Republic of Congo, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The logging could significantly increase carbon emissions, Laporte said.
Woods Hole, in Woods Hole, Mass., is a research center dedicated to the environmental study of marine and land-masses worldwide.
