Africa-Press – Angola. The Forestry Development Institute (IDF) encourages the diversification of the timber market, with the exploration of new species abundant in the country, with a view to stimulating the activity.
Speaking to the press this Friday, as part of a working visit to the province of Moxico, the general director of the Forestry Development Institute (IDF), Simão Zau, reiterated that despite the prohibition on the exploitation of Mussive, there are other species that are equally valuable for this market.
For the diversification of this activity, he highlighted Muvula, Mulonde, Mucossua, Muvuca, Mussesse and other species with high financial value, which can be sold in Asia and Europe.
Simão Zau, who was speaking after a meeting with the vice-governor for the Political, Economic and Social sector, acknowledged that the ban on the exploration of Mussive lowered the level of exploitation in the provinces of Moxico and Cuando-Cubango, promoting unemployment in a number of considerable number of young people in these regions.
“We want to capture and bring entrepreneurs to exploit wood from other species and to do this it is necessary to make an inventory of the local forest”, highlighted the director general of the IDF.
On the other hand, it announced the auction this year of seized wood, locally, with the participation of buyers from the different provinces of the country.
The President of the Administrative Council of the Public Wood Company of Angola (MADANG EP), Tomás Pedro Caetano, informed that in Moxico there are three thousand cubic meters of wood to be evacuated to the market, seized for technical and administrative reasons.
He continued that the meeting with the government of Moxico aimed to find ways to release this material, which is causing losses to companies operating in the field.
In Moxico, four companies are authorized to explore, in an area of 20 thousand cubic meters, during the ongoing 2023/24 forestry campaign.
The country has a natural forest surface estimated at 53 million hectares, corresponding to around half (43 percent) of the national territory and has an annual cutting capacity estimated at 326 thousand cubic meters of wood, thousands of tons of charcoal and firewood.
Of this number of 53 million hectares, the province of Moxico has 380 thousand hectares, being the second largest in the country, after Cabinda.
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