424 WEST AFRICAN FORESTS AND FORESTRY 



an almost illimitable amount of unused sylvan wealth is to be found. 

 Despite the obvious advantage of the Congo River, with its 3,000 

 miles suitable for timber transport and its hundreds of tributaries 

 with many more thousand miles of streams, capable of floating logs, 

 only the smallest quantities of mahogany are exported from the 

 Belgian Congo. 



No doubt the large size of the river and the great distance of some 

 of the forests from the sea have hindered a more rapid and intensive 

 exploitation of the forests. In fact. Mahogany {Khaya sp.) as an 

 export timber is not really so well known as Redwood {Pterocarpus 

 sp.), though the former has been shipped in the round. In the past 

 a better known Belgian wood was blockwood or boxwood, known 

 as Polyadoa umbellata or Dialium Guineense. Other forest products, 

 however, such as Gum Copal {DanielUa sp.), are found in huge quantities, 

 in large blocks weighing over a hundredweight, and have been 

 exported for many years. 



Large quantities of rubber, too, have been exported, and Oil Palm 

 products, such as kernels and oil, are of increasing export importance, 

 especially since Les Huileries de Congo have started working up the 

 Oil Palm forests with modern means of transport and machinery 

 on three different tracts of 10,000 hectares each. 



The railways of the Congo, supplementing as they do the water- 

 ways, have also not been used to any extent for the shipment of 

 timber, though vast quantities of firewood have been burnt on them 

 as well as conveyed to the various stations both near and on the River 

 Congo. To some extent the paucity and low density of population 

 per unit of area has tended to hinder the working of heavy produce 

 such as timber, which is difficult to transport compared to rubber, 

 with its higher value per unit of weight. Owing to this fact, too, 

 near the mouth of the Congo there is an almost savannah forest 

 on the banks of the river, which has given the country the appearance 

 of not being an afforested one. In the past the system of huge, 

 exclusive trading concessions over specific areas being granted only 

 to one firm also hindered any free development of the more lower- 

 priced forest produce such as timber. 



SPANISH GUINEA 



From Eloby, a little-known port situated in the middle of the coast 

 of the Spanish possession south of the Cameroons, a great deal of 

 Gaboon Mahogany {Oukoumea Klaineana), Redwood {Pterocarpus 

 Soyauxia), and several other timbers have been exported. Despite 

 the fact that the forests are not extensive, but almost untouched, 

 and very rich in mahogany, a comparatively small number of firms 

 have been Avorking these areas. Apparently there are no forest laws, 



