***********************************************
WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Africa's
Last Intact Belt of Rainforest Threatened
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
4/4/96
OVERVIEW
& SOURCE
The New
York Times reports on logging in the largest remaining
patch
of equatorial forest in Africa. The
area is about the size
of New
York state. Although having less than
40,000 people,
typical
forest threats including logging by a French company seems
to
portend forest destruction here as elsewhere.
g.b.
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/*
Written 6:45 PM Apr
4, 1996 by relief in igc:rainfor.genera
*/
/*
---------- "Gabon Rainforests and Pygmies" ---------- */
From:
Rainforest Relief <relief@igc.apc.org>
The
following article is from THE NEW YORK TIMES, Wednesday April
3, 1996
AN
AFRICAN FOREST HARBORS VAST WEALTH AND PERIL
By
Howard W. French
EVELA,
Gabon -- The forest grows so thick at the edge of this tiny
settlement
that event the N'tem River, a sizable Central African
waterway,
is completely obscured in the riotous greenery. Asked
what
lies beyond, a Fang villager shrugs and says "nothing."
From
time immemorial, for the Fang -- one of the Bantu peoples who
make up
the bulk of Central Africa's population -- this area has
been
known as the edge of the world. But in fact, the land beyond
this
point has always been home to others: small groups of
Pygmies,
whose hunting-and-gathering livelihood had until recently
changed
little in a millennium.
The
equatorial forest inhabited by Gabon's Pygmies, an area about
the
size of New York state, is at the heart
of Africa's last
intact
belt of rain forest. It is still peopled by fewer than
40,000
inhabitants. But now it is facing changes of a pace and a
magnitude
far greater than anyone here, Fang or Pygmy, has yet
grasped.
Only a
few dozen miles from this village, convoys of lumber trucks
filled
with stone are bringing material to French-led crews laying
the
paved roads that will open up this area as never before. In
the
capital, Libreville, and in the head- quarters of European
logging
companies, plans are already being laid for the forest's
exploitation.
At the
same time, groups from the World Wildlife Fund to the World
Bank
are racing to mount efforts to inventory the huge catalogue
of
plant and animal species that live here and to identify areas
for
strict conservation on Gabon's last frontier for commercial
forestry.
With
its sparse human population and its dense canopy still
intact,
international environmental experts say that what happens
to this
jungle in Gabon will be an important bellwether for
Africa's
last major belt of relatively pristine rain forest,
a vast
area that stretches from the continent's equatorial coast
across
Gabon and well into the Congo River basin deep in Zaire.
"A
lot of money is being spent in places like Brazil, in area
trying
to rescue forests that have already been devastated," said
Kathryn
Simons, an American environmentalist who is studying
conservation
efforts in Gabon. "In Central Africa, where
relatively
little has been done so far, we have a unique
opportunity
to save a major tropical forest before it is
destroyed."
It was
in this forest, too, that the Ebola virus appeared in
humans
last year, killing some people in Gabon before it swept
into
Zaire and killed 244 others. Some experts warn that opening
the forest,
where unidentified animals are believed to harbor the
disease,
could unleash more epidemics.
If
northern Gabon still boasts some of Central Africa's densest
remaining
woodlands, in particular, the Minkebe forests, both
experts
and residents of this area can point to signs of an
endangered
future. Major logging companies and sawmills have not
yet
reached this forest, but already to the south and east of
here,
small operators have begun chipping away at this habitat in
search
of Okuome, the most readily exploitable tree species, which
is use
mostly for plywood.
Wildcat
gold miners, too, have been reported operating deep in the
forest,
where they fell trees and dig deep pits, dumping mercury
and
other highly toxic chemicals in the ground or in streams.
An
arduous two-week hike away from Evela, along ancient footpaths
traversed
by thick columns of army ants and spied upon by tree
leopards,
live Pygmies who have never set eyes on Westerners. But
already,
around the fringes of the Minkebe forest, more and more
Pygmies
are being drawn into the life of modern Africa and its
cash
economy.
Throughout
Gabon, wild game is considered choice dining. And in
towns
like this and in nearby Minvoul, Pygmies wait for city folk
or
Bantu agriculturist to hire their services asa master hunters
of the
prized forest elephants.
Setting
out armed with old 12-guage shotguns and a few shells
each,
the hunters can spend weeks in the forest, wandering a
landscape
teeming with wildlife. The forest's estimated 65,000
elephants,
along with Zaire's elephant population the largest in
Africa,
are the most prized game, but the array of potential
targets
is mind-boggling.
Pygmy
hunters say their prizes include 30-foot boa constrictors,
antelopes,
gorillas, porcupines, boars and monkeys of all kinds.
But if
the variety is rich, the Pygmies themselves say that their
search
for game becomes more difficult each year as the hunting
parties
multiply.
"When
we were young men, the hunt was done with arrows," said Omer
Amaya,
a 58-year-old Pygmy hunter whose settlement lies in a
forest
clearing at the edge of Minvoul. "We could go out for eight
or nine
hours and come home with a big catch. Nowadays you must
walk at
least three days before you can count on even seeing
anything
interesting."
For the
hunters, the reason for this increasing scarcity seem
simple:
their hunting has thinned game populations. "Wherever the
barrel
of the gun belches, the animals will try to avoid," said
Hilarion
Mikou. "After a time, if all is quiet, the animals will
come
back."
For
environmental experts, however, the picture is more complex.
"These
forests are still primary forests in their structure, but
already
they are being exploited," said Marc Languy, a forest
expert
with eh World Wildlife Fund. "We have noted a decrease of
80
percent in chimpanzee populations. If it is true that they can
rebound,
this is a process that might take 15 or 20
years."
The
recent outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in the town of
Mayibout,
another small Bantu outpost in the forest 130 miles to
the
southeast of here, has reminded many of another possible
consequence
of the forest encroachment. The outbreak killed less
than 20
people in Gabon, but swept through the Zairian town of
Kikwit
with devastating effects a last year, quickly killing
244
people.
The
origins of the virus are not known, but it is presumed to have
a
natural host somewhere in the forests, from which it infects
primates.
Those who died in Gabon had recently feasted on
chimpanzee
meat.
Scientists
at a major international conference on Ebola held in
Kinshasa,
Zaire, earlier this month theorized that environmental
damage
to previously pristine forest areas brought about the
emergence
of Ebola as a major health threat.
"In
Gabon, gold prospectors went deep in the forest, they cut down
trees
in all direction, they dug up and
destroyed a part of this
environment,"
said Jean-Jacques Muyembe, a Zairian Ebola
researcher.
"This gave rise to the emergence of the virus." His
theory
si that the virus was dormant until its environment was so
severely
disrupted.
Pygmy
hunters, meanwhile, say that in recent months they have
encountered
increasing numbers of dead gorillas and chimpanzees in
the
forest, where they have been felled by a mysterious
affliction.
"You
can hardly find any live gorillas anymore," said Mr. Mikou.
"We've
never seen this before. A big game animal that fears
nothing
is just dropping dead."
If
conservation groups are beginning to marshal an effort to save
Gabon's
northern forests from the heavy logging that has taken
place
almost everywhere else in this country, tropical wood
interests
would seem to have the early upper hand.
A Dutch
concern known as Wijima has already secured rights to just
over
one million acres of the Minkebe forest. And Gabon's
President,
Omar Bongo, has roped off another 542,000 acres of
virgin
forest for logging, just to the south of Minkebe.
"This
is the last place that good supplies of wood are left in the
country,"
said Pierre Mezui M'Eyie, a Government forest inspector
based
in the provincial capital of Oyem. "Right now, no one seems
to know
what kind of wealth there is here, but once the first
commercial
permits are issued, you will see a flood of
applications.
"Then
it is only a matter of time before the Minkebe is
destroyed."
======================================================
Is
anyone working on this?
Does
anyone have any ideas on what can be done about this?
I am
working up an action alert now, but what else? I think there
is
special potential for French and Dutch actions.
Please
contact me with ideas.
Tim
Keating, Director
Rainforest
Relief
__________________________________________________
R A
I N F O R
E S T R E
L I E F
Dedicated to
the Preservation of
the World's Rainforests
Red
Bank, NJ: (908) 842-6030
Portland,
OR: (503) 236-3031
Fax:
(908) 747-7830
Email:
relief@igc.apc.org
P.O.
Box 281
Red
Bank, NJ 07701 USA
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