MEN OF THE TREES 



mate, agriculture, and even the very existence of man. 

 This can be more clearly demonstrated in Africa where 

 vast areas are drying up and are becoming depopulated 

 as the direct result of forest destruction. Recent scien- 

 tific research has shown that the Sahara has not always 

 been desert. Remains of trees have been found on the 

 banks of vanished rivers and on the shores of dried-up 

 lakes. At the time of Mohammed it is estimated that 

 about a million Arabs invaded parts that are now desert. 

 They cut the forests to make their farms, moving on to 

 repeat the same process of destruction as soon as they had 

 reaped their crops. They brought with them vast herds 

 of goats. It is probable that each Arab possessed about a 

 hundred goats. Now a hundred million goats following 

 in the train of a million nomadic farmers would not al- 

 low of much tree-growth, for the goat is the bete noir of 

 the forest. 



To the north of the Gold Coast, in a territory under 

 the French sphere of influence, vast areas are drying up 

 and becoming depopulated as the direct result of forest 

 destruction. In certain tribes the chiefs have forbidden 

 marriage and their women refuse to bear children, be- 

 cause they see the end of the forest in sight and they will 

 not raise sons and daughters to starvation. They have 

 been trapped in a wedge of the forest with desert right 

 and left of them and desiccation travelling fast in their 

 wake, while the shifting sand buries their poor crops, 

 driving them into the point of the wedge for their pres- 

 ent cultivations. 



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