There is a large amount of forest acreage buried underwater as a result of the rapid construction of hydro and irrigation dam projects built from the 1960’s until the end of the last century.

Harvesting the underwater trees could be worth billions of dollars for tropical countries.

Ghana alone has submerged over 14 million cubic meters of rot-resistant hardwoods such as ebony, wawa and odum trees when they created Lake Volta in the 1960s, the largest man made lake in Africa.

“Logging will start in October, said Robert Bamfo of Ghana’s Forest Commission. “The project aims to harvest timber worth over 4 billion dollars.”

Harvesting the timber will not only provide employment and revenues but will also eliminate navigational shipping hazards. “Boat collisions with submerged tree stumps cause many fatalities every year.” said Mr. Bamfo.

A Canadian company, CSR Developments, will invest a 100 million dollars in the Ghanian underwater logging project. The company plans to mount cutting equipment on barges, their remotely controlled saws are then lowered into the water and guided to the timber by sonar sensors.

The trees are grabbed and brought to the surface. Grabbing the trees is an important part of the process.

Because the trees are still buoyant once they have been cut they can shoot to the surface and break the water like missiles creating a severe safety hazard.

Freelance loggers in Brazil still dive with pneumatic saws and let the logs fly to the surface like submarine fired ICBMs. The loss of life, limb and equipment is high.

Developing nations are looking at underwater logging as way of countering the rapid deforestation of their land based forest resources.

“The potential is there,” said Mr. Bamfo.

Calling them the forgotten forests Mr.Bamfo said, “There are similar circumstances in numerous countries around the world including the Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Brazil, Surinam, Malaysia and others.”

Although the trees in Ghana’s Lake Volta have been underwater since the construction of the Akosombo Dam in the 1960s they still have commercial value. “The trees are still strong,” said Mr. Bamfo.