A new study co-authored by a World Wildlife Fund scientist documents waves of forest degradation advancing like ripples in a pond 75 miles across East Africa in just 14 years.

Scientists from 12 organizations in Europe, Africa and the US demonstrated that forest exploitation begins with the removal of the most valuable products first, such as timber for export, followed by the extraction of less valuable products such as low value timber and charcoal in strict sequence. This ‘logging down the profit margin’ in tropical forests follows the same pattern of removal seen for fish in unmanaged oceans.