Effect of Refuaees on Natural Forests

Abstract

The Sudan is a vast country with nine nieghboubering countries around its borders. Since more than three decades Sudan hosted refugees from African nieghboubering countries especially Eritrea and Ethiopia. Formal conventions made by United Nations (UNHCR) gives the refugees the right of settlements and support and the Sudan Government gave them the lands for both settlement and agriculture. Severe environmental degradation took place to the natural resource (Forests resources). Moreover, loss of wildlife habitat, range lands, soil productivity, which leads to environmental degradation due to over exploitation and misuse by refugees' population on the areas settled by refugees in addition to the study area which is located at South East Gedarif State at ElRahad locality. Therefore a research is conducted to: (i) Investigate the effect of refugees on natural forests at Abu-Rakham Camp. (ii) Suggest solution and methods of rehabilitation for areas affected by refugees. A questionnaire is made for refugees at Abu-Rakham camp population about 100 families. The results indicated that about (72.9%) of the refugees use wood as fuel. 54.1% were obtaining their fuel from the area around the camp. Age class which shows high percentages is between 20 to30 years (72.9%). Most of the refugees (62.2%) use Aladais as a stove. The measurement result shows that the percentage of the loss of trees per hactar of Abu-Rakham East forest plantation (Plantation established by CARE) was 45.6 % which is an indicator to severe deforestation in the future. The recommendations of the study include energy saving methods, and using of energy, should be assessed and disseminated for all community. On the other hand the encouragement and facilities should be given to refugees to use gas energy. Research should be focused on the following fields: pest control biodiversity soil seed bank natural regeneration Selection of species according to ecological factors Forest guard should be assured incase the forest abuses are not stopped. To improve the productivity of the lands, Tungia system should be applied on agricultural lands. In that case the area will be protected form environmental hazards such as flooding and soil erosion.