Face of Truth | Ibrahim Shglawi Who Is Clearing Our Forests?

Based on monitoring the evidence, it is clear that another war is taking place silently, targeting the land and forests, and depleting what makes them capable of sustaining life. It is a war against vegetation cover, forests, pastures, and water, and its impact may go beyond the loss of trees if the deliberate removal of vegetation cover turns from a side effect of the war into one of its undeclared tools.

An example of this is the Acacia Forest in central Khartoum, one of the capital’s most important natural lungs, which for decades remained an ecosystem, a breathing space for the city, and a habitat for biodiversity. But the war has left widespread destruction there, amid reports that cutting has gone beyond individual firewood collection to organized operations. These are signs that open the door to investigation: Is what is happening merely a result of the collapse of security and the need for fuel, or does part of it represent an agenda targeting the environment as one of the foundations of the population’s resilience?

What is striking is that the phenomenon is not confined to the Acacia Forest in Khartoum. Extensive removal of forest cover has been observed in Sennar and Blue Nile, as well as Gezira, White Nile, Gedaref, North Kordofan, and elsewhere, while the competent authorities in Sennar have spoken of systematic destruction that has deprived the state of a significant proportion of its forest cover. This geographical spread imposes a different reading of the phenomenon. When cutting operations are repeated across multiple states, it is not sufficient to explain all of them by the need for firewood and charcoal or the collapse of oversight, although these are certainly among the confirmed causes. There is a need to distinguish between subsistence woodcutting, organized trade, and removal that may be directly linked to the war agenda.

Here the issue begins to acquire its political and security meaning. War against the land does not always take place with artillery or mortars; sometimes it can begin by drying up the conditions for life upon it. When trees are removed, pastures deteriorate, soil is depleted, and the land’s ability to retain water declines, agricultural and pastoral communities gradually lose their ability to remain where they are. Displacement then becomes a consequence of the destruction of the conditions and causes of life, rather than merely a direct result of fighting.

The matter becomes even more significant when we look at what Sudan was doing before the war. The state had made efforts to combat desertification, expand vegetation cover, develop pastures, harvest water, and rehabilitate land. These policies were not environmental in their narrow sense; rather, they were linked to an attempt to stabilize rural communities, improve agricultural and pastoral production, and create better conditions for the return of internally displaced persons and refugees from neighboring countries and their resettlement in their areas of origin. Therefore, the destruction of forests, pastures, and water sources does not merely destroy a natural resource; it may also destroy the very structure through which people were intended to return to their land.

Here the political paradox becomes clear: the state was attempting to increase the land’s capacity to receive and sustain its population, while the clearing of vegetation cover and destruction of resources makes the land less capable of retaining them. If it is proven that such clearing was carried out deliberately in some areas and simultaneously with the destruction of water sources and disruption of agriculture and pastoral activities, then we would be facing a full-fledged environmental crime, alongside a pattern of pressure on the population by weakening the foundations of their survival.

The removal of vegetation cover may “prevent rain,” and it also exacerbates drought and accelerates desertification by weakening the soil and its ability to retain water and moisture, threatening agriculture and pastoralism and driving people to search for water, pasture, and food, or to cross borders in search of refuge. Hence, the possibility of deliberate, excessive clearing becomes worthy of investigation: if satellite imagery reveals accelerated removal in areas coinciding with changes in control or the destruction of wells, pastures, and water-harvesting systems, followed by displacement, then we are facing a dangerous pattern that must not be ignored.

Here, the matter also becomes a test of Sudan’s climate commitments. President al-Burhan participated in COP29 in Baku, pledged that Sudan would prepare a national plan for adaptation to climate change and promote renewable energy, and called for sustainable development financing, while the address acknowledged that the war had contributed to increased deforestation. Therefore, reconstruction should not rebuild cities alone; it should also restore forests, pastures, water resources, and green belts, transforming the protection of vegetation cover from an environmental slogan into a measurable and accountable national and climate commitment.

Youth initiatives in Shambat and other youth initiatives demonstrate that society is capable of saving what remains, but protecting forests is the responsibility of the state.

Therefore, according to #Face_of_Truth, “Who Is Clearing Our Forests?” is not merely an environmental question, but a national security issue requiring an urgent investigation to determine who cuts, transports, and buys, and who is behind the clearing, supported by satellite imagery and by linking the removal of vegetation to water, pastures, displacement, and the timber trade. If it is proven that environmental destruction was used to weaken the conditions of survival and push people to leave, then we are facing an assault on stability.

 Accordingly, what remains must be protected, the trade must be pursued, and afforestation, water harvesting, and pasture rehabilitation must be accelerated as part of reconstruction, for a tree can be uprooted in hours, but its loss may burden the country for decades.

May you remain in good health and well-being.

Sunday, August 23, 2026. Shglawi55@gmail.com