"We have decided that from this year, the felling and selling of Christmas trees is banned in Burundi," said Astere Bararwandika, the head of the forestry department in Ministry of Environment.

He told AFP the move was intended to stop an annual loss of about 80,000 conifers amounting to about 80 hectares (198 acres) of forest that is blamed on the Christmas tree market in the heavily Christian country.

"We urge people to buy artificial fir trees from shops or, if they can't afford those, to use banana trees," Bararwandika said.

The impact of the ban on this year's Christmas was not immediately clear although anecdotal evidence suggested a dearth of natural trees for sale in the capital where peasants from the countryside had traditionally flocked to sell cut conifers, according to an AFP correspondent in Bujumbura.

Officials said no one had yet been caught violating the ban and that no specific penalty for scofflaws had been determined, but offenders will likely be charged under current illegal logging laws that can bring a hefty fine on conviction.

The step is likely to be unpopular in the impoverished, war-ravaged country as a survey of shops in the capital found that an imitation Christmas tree costs about 65 dollars (54 euros), while natural trees were being sold at an average of five dollars (four euros) depending on size before the ban.

Currently, Burundi has between four to five pecent of forest cover compared to eight percent before the eruption of an ethnically driven civil war in 1993 that sparked lawlessness, rampant deforestation for fire wood and claimed some 300,000 lives.

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