biological diversity and tropical forests in tunisia - PART

3. STATUS OF TUNISIAN FORESTS
Ocly 3% of the coc-desert area of Tucisia is covered by forests. Evec
if maquis are iccluded there is still only 6% covezage, which makes
Tunisia one of the Mediterranean forests poorest in forests (~iz. For.
1986). The optimum forest covezage for a country is 20% (~1-~amzouci
1978). To attaic that level would require masstve reforestation efforts
on 2,000,000 ha of lacd. Obviously this is ac extremely difficult goal to
reach, especially since the tzend has actually beec toward defozestatioc.
A gove-meet study (~ir. For. 1984) zeported 108,000 ha conducive to
reforestatioc ic corthern Tunisia, of which ocly 56,000 ha aze trily
likely to produce successf~l zesults fzom placticg. The yest of the areas
available for reforestation aze eithe- heavily g~azed, salice oz desertic.
Ir. 1910 forests cove-ed 1,250,000 ha, b ~ by t 7975 the area was reduced
to 500,000 ha. Ic the Nogod mo.ict.aics ore-third of the fo-est cove- was
removed ic 10 yeax with disast-02s cocsequecces for soil cocservation.
FIuch of this loss car. be attribzted to the massive fo-est ha~vesticg
operatiocs d~:ir.g the coloci.al period acd icacciirate s-rvey methods.
Howeve?, betweec :975 acd :985 ac additiozal reductioc of 132,000 ha
occi;??ed - a rate of ove- 73,OOC ha pe- yea-. A t the curreet rate, the
forests of T~cisia coiild disappea~ ic less thac a cect-ry.
Cazses of deforestatioc icclude poo- timber ha-vesticg pzactices,
erosior., clearicg fo- ag~icclture acd grazicg lards and cocstact p-essure
for forest products, sach as fuelwood acd forage. A t Djebel Semmama, ic
the Tilcisiac Do-sal, 775 of the yearly forest productioc disappea~s to
locel zesidexts (~1-~amroai 1978). kc estimated 7,336,000 cubic meters
per year (OIJUPAA :985) are reeded to szpply the natiocal demacd for wood
(87% of which is fuelwood). The potectjal sustaicable prod~ctjoc of
485,000 ha of cat-ral ard artificial forest Is only 4.45 of the total
demacd .
Ic 7984 a total of 2,817,000 n' or 38s of the estimated demacd was
taker from the forests, i~dicaticg a deficit ic accual forest productioc.
Ac additiocal 360,000 m 3
was imported (FAO 1996) to meet the denand for
icdustrial wood, which still left 595 of the fuelwood demacd urmet. A
demacd of that maccitude icvariably results in widesp-ead mauthozized
fuelwood collection acd fo~est deg~adatioc. Othe- forest pzoducts
harvested ic 1984 include:
Cork 7,403,000 kg
Rosemary 58,000 ha
Kyrtiis comnilcis 9,000 ha
Cape-s 4,500 ha
Seeds (?ice)
Dwarf palm
32,000 kg
> 353 toes
Feather ( ~ ~ isp? c a uckcowr.