Forest Council Takes Action on Gabon's Forests

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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

http://forests.org/

11/28/97

OVERVIEW, SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE

Following is excellent coverage by InterPress Service from econet

concerning threats to the Gabon rainforests of Africa. There is much

debate regarding whether any type of industrial logging, certified or

not, should be occurring in the world's last remaining old-growth

forests.

g.b.

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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

Title: ENVIRONMENT-GABON: Forest Council Takes Action

Source: InterPress Service

Date: November 18, 1997

Byline: By Danielle Knight

** Written 10:01 PM Nov 24, 1997 by econet in cdp:headlines **

/* Written 3:26 PM Nov 21, 1997 by newsdesk@igc.org in ips.english */

/* ---------- "ENVIRONMENT-GABON: Forest Council T" ---------- */

Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.

*** 18-Nov-97 ***

Title: ENVIRONMENT-GABON: Forest Council Takes Action

By Danielle Knight

WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 (IPS) - The world's international forest

management watchdog, after pressure from environmental groups, has

withdrawn its ''environmentally sound'' certification from a Franco-

German logging company operating in the African rainforests of Gabon.

Furious protests by environmental organisations in Africa, Europe and

the United States has resulted in the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)

ordering its certifier 'Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS-

Forestry)' to strip the French logging company, Leroy Gabon and its

parent company Isoroy, owned by the German conglomerate Glunz AG, of

the environmental forestry seal of approval.

Environmental groups, such as the California-based Rainforest Action

Network (RAN) say that originally, SGS gave the logging conglomerate

the green-light to operate in 518,000 acres of primary forest next to

a forest reserve in the central Africa nation.

''The Gabon rainforest, home to scores of endangered species,

including the rare lowland gorilla, is still being logged but at least

without the approval of the world's largest certifier of sustainable

timber,'' says Christopher Hatch, a campaign director with RAN.

Since 1993, FSC has been accrediting auditors around the world, who in

turn examine logging operations and determine if they can be called

''certified.'' Non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and

ecologically-minded companies that sit on the Council give a seal of

approval for consumers and distributors confirming that wood products

were sustainably produced.

Standards include respecting the land rights of indigenous peoples,

conserving biological diversity and maintaining original forests.

FSC's credibility was almost lost among environmentalists, however,

after word got out earlier this year that logging of primary forest

was about to begin in Gabon with the blessing of an organisation that

should be preventing it.

''Certifying operations that do not meet FSC standards is a betrayal

of the trust that consumers and environmental groups depend on

certification programs to separate properly managed logging from

careless habitat destruction,'' Britain-based Friends of the Earth and

the German group Rettet Den Regenwald (Save the Rainforest) told the

FSC in letter of protest.

While Jamison Ervin, the U.S. representative for FSC, admits that

council director Tim Synnott may have made some premature public

statements in support of Leroy in the past, after careful examination

of the company's plans to log primary forest, she says the

environmental watchdog is requiring the withdrawal of the Gabon

certification and also the temporary suspension of SGS's license.

The council is currently investigating permanently suspending SGS's

certification license. ''There are concerns that besides the lack of

management, they did not consult with the government or local

environmental groups,'' Ervin told IPS. ''These violate our

standards.''

Before FSC's withdrawal of certification for Leroy-Gabon, Gabon's

Water and Forest Department expressed concern that they were not

involved in the process. ''Such things should not be a secret for the

[department], which is a stakeholder in this long and delicate process

of certification.''

At present, no timber coming out of Africa is FSC certified.

Even though they lost FSC's certification and a 'green' market line in

Europe, Leroy Gabon, one of the largest logging corporation in the

region, still plans to cut and export the tropical softwood Okoume,

primarily for the European plywood market.

Earlier this year, five Gabonese non-governmental organisations

(NGOs), including Image Gabon Nature and Friends of the Pangolin

along with international environmental groups, expressed their anger

over Leroy Gabon's plans to log near the Lope Forest Reserve.

''The risks for the regrowth of Okoume and other trees in this zone

can be imagined,'' they wrote in a statement to FSC.

Leroy-Gabon maintains that its practices are environmentally sound and

sees itself as the victim of an unfair environmental campaign.

''We have been the target of attacks by NGOs,'' Isoroy/Leroy Gabon

director Paul Smadja told IPS. ''Without regard for Gabon's

development, some [NGOs] have launched a campaign to force the

Gabonese government to extend the Lope Reserve.''

Environmentalists say they feel very strongly about Gabon's

development. ''Deforestation is not sustainable development, it only

amounts to short term gains,'' says Hatch.

Habouring species, such as elephants, chimpanzees, gorillas and

bonobos, that are extinct or endangered elsewhere on the continent,

African rainforests, such as Gabon's, rank alongside those of the

Amazon as some of the most biologically diverse in the world. Over 20

percent of the species so far discovered in Gabon's forests are found

nowhere else on earth, says Hatch.

Inhabited by fewer than 40,000 inhabitants, this remote region now

faces huge changes.

''Less than a hundred years ago, a dense band of undisturbed tropical

rainforest spanned the width of central Africa. Today almost all of

central Africa's forests have been roped off by foreign logging

companies, who are taking the timber - and the profits - overseas,''

says Paul Kingsworth, the international coordinator of London-based

Earth Action, an international environmental network.

Virtually all of Gabon's forests, covering 85 percent of the country -

the highest proportion of rainforest cover in Africa, are now under

threat from logging. Gabon has five legally protected areas of

rainforest, covering eight percent of the country, where logging is

illegal. Local groups report that due to lack of government

enforcement, logging is occurring within the reserves.

Groups say the government is allowing more and more logging in this

oil-rich country as the slump in oil prices has reduced the country's

revenues. While, in the past the government of Gabon has expressed

concern over the certification, it has not released any statement

regarding FSC's decision.

The onslaught of logging companies in Africa is gathering speed, say

environmentalists. Proportionally, Africa has already lost twice as

much of its original forest as South America, and a third more than

Asia, says Lois Barber, the international coordinator of an Earth

Action chapter in Massachusetts.

Attracted by the African nation's Okoume trees which are highly valued

on the world market, about 100 logging companies, mostly European,

operate in Gabon. People in Gabon, however, see few benefits of the

logging trade - 3 percent of the timber leaves the country as raw

logs, along with most of the profits, says Hatch.

One of the most immediate consequences of Leroy's logging, besides the

obvious habitat destruction, is the construction of a myriad of roads

which give access to oil companies, gold miners and illegal hunters to

previously undisturbed areas, say environmental groups such as the

Belgian-based World Wildlife Fund and Britain-based Friends of the

Earth.

Environmentalists point out that logging elsewhere in Gabon have

caused a rapid increase in poaching in previously remote and

uninhabited areas. Gorillas and chimpanzees are killed for their meat,

to be sold as far away as South Africa, and their heads and hands, are

sold as 'souvenirs.' (END/IPS/dk/97)

Origin: ROMAWAS/ENVIRONMENT-GABON/

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[c] 1997, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)

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