"Long term health of Congo forests threatened by human activity"

The constant hunting of forest elephants, antelopes, gorillas, and other seed dispersers is most likely going to have long-term impacts on the health and life of Congo Basin rain forests. After conducting research, they concluded that unless an able management's plan is put into action, hunting pressure in the area is likely to escalate and have major ecological effects. Many authors warned that "profound ecological changes initiated by hunting... may even exacerbate the predicted effects of climate change for the region." Even though humans have been hunting animals in Africa's tropical forest's for a long time, in recent decades the emergence of large urban markets that specialized in bushmeat have become more common in the rise of commercial hunting in the region. Also, the exploding demand of ivory is only worsening the problem, which is resulting in the depletion of a range of seed-dispersing wildlife that is important in forest ecology. For instance, if forest lost elephants in West Africa it would trigger a dramatic shift toward smaller, faster growing trees that are less diverse and store much less carbon. A possible solution is for an effective management to take on this growing problem and put a plan into place. Some barriers to this solution is money and time, in society today there is so many environmental issues and majority of them don't get resolved until they hit rock bottem. In my opinion, WildLife Conservation and other managements should work on preserving the forest to make the region and animals safe. By doing so, it would have a great impact on the long term health of the Congo forest.

http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/46240