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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Gabon:
Pact Is Reached to Save a Rich Tropical Forest
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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org
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Conservation Archives
http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest
Conservation
08/13/00
OVERVIEW
& COMMENTARY
A 1,900
square mile reserve has been established in Gabon, Africa.
The
action is not without controversy, in that an existing reserve
was
redrawn to include more valuable forest habitat, but that covers
a
smaller extent. The success of the
reserve will depend upon
maintaining
the integrity of the boundaries from this point forth,
and not
relegating the surrounding substantial unprotected forests to
cut and
run industrial forestry.
g.b.
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RELAYED
TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Pact Is Reached to Save a Rich Tropical
Forest
Source: Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
Date: August 1, 2000
By: ANDREW C. REVKIN
Ending
a conflict over the fate of a forest rich in both wood and
wildlife,
loggers, biologists and the government of Gabon have agreed
to keep
bulldozers and chain saws out of a 1,900-square-mile reserve
with
the highest density of large mammals ever recorded in a tropical
rain
forest.
The
deal includes a slight redrawing of the boundaries of Gabon's Lop‚
Reserve,
subtracting 400 square miles of land on the southeastern
flank
that holds the richest stands of valuable okoum‚ trees, and
adding
about 200 square miles of previously unprotected terrain that
includes
remote upland forests that have only rarely, if ever, felt
the
footfall of a humans.
Several
biologists working in the region say the net loss of land is
worth
it. The area opened to logging had been farmed less than 200
years
ago and so is relatively recent growth. In contrast, they say,
the
newly protected area, which was to have been cut by Malaysian and
French
companies, is a priceless reservoir of biological riches that
is
thought to have been essentially undisturbed for the last 10,000
years.
More
important, they say, the agreement -- signed last month by the
country's
major logging companies, the government, and a variety of
private
environmental groups -- finally brings meaning to the word
reserve,
with the government and loggers committing for the first time
never
to violate the new boundaries.
The
Lop‚ Reserve has also been designated as the first candidate for
national
park status in Gabon, a country that prospered through oil in
the
past, but has been in economic decline recently and has seen
timber
as the source of future wealth. Gabon straddles the Equator and
rises
from Africa's west coast in a river-laced patchwork of savannah,
deep
forest and mountains.
Lee J.
T. White, a zoologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society in
the
Bronx, who has studied Gabonese chimpanzees and rainbow-faced
mandrills,
said the deal was a major victory for African wildlife.
For
years, he documented how logging was driving adjacent chimpanzee
groups
into warfare. All around Central Africa, he said, logging roads
have
provided quick access for hunters supplying the exploding urban
market
for bush meat, killing everything from snakes to gorillas.
This
practice results in what biologists are calling "empty forest
syndrome,"
Dr. White said, in which snares and guns remove almost
every
living thing, leaving a green but silent landscape that appears
intact
but is in fact a zoological desert.
Now, at
least for the forests of Lop‚, he said, that threat is ended.
"We
don't really want to set the precedent that every time a logger
says he
wants to log in a reserve you're going to redesign it willy-
nilly,"
Dr. White said. "But we've gone from a situation where about
two-thirds
of the reserve was actually in logging concessions to the
point
where we've lost some land but the whole reserve is protected
from
logging forever."
Not
everyone is thrilled with the deal. Several private environmental
groups
in Europe have taken a hard line against logging in the region,
saying
the companies, all based in Europe or Asia, have too much
economic
power and the governments are too quick to cave in.
They
say the larger international environmental groups that negotiated
the
agreement, including the World Wildlife Fund, are far too
trusting.
Simon
Counsell, director of the British arm of the Rainforest
Foundation,
said the net loss of preserve land still had the feel of a
giveaway,
when the right thing to do would have been for the
government
simply to enforce its laws.
"It
may be that the new area is better," Mr. Counsell said. "But one
can't
help but suspect that it's more an indication of the influence
and
power of some of the large logging companies in Gabon. In some
stage
further down the line, who's to say that they couldn't redraw
the
boundaries again?"
But
Gabonese officials say the commitment is real.
In a
telephone interview, Richard Onouviet, the minister of land and
water,
described how representatives from differing camps, including
the
World Wildlife Fund and Leroy Gabon, a French-owned logging
company,
remained cloistered in negotiations for two long meetings to
find a
suitable compromise.
"We're
preserving the ecological interests but permitting the rational
development
of the country's forests," Mr. Onouviet said. "The
companies
working here understand this is the policy of the
government."
Biologists
said the Gabonese shift to considering the ecological
consequences
of forestry had come just in time to save the most
important
parts of Lop‚, which were scheduled for clearing.
In the
early 1990's, logging companies, including Leroy-Gabon, a
subsidiary
of Isoroy, a large French forestry company, had invested
heavily
in mills in Gabon needed to keep a supply of logs flowing.
They
had logging rights to okoum‚ stands near the reserve, and after
cutting
those, were pressing the government for the right to log
within
the reserve. Okoum‚ is prized in Europe and Asia because it has
a red
grain and water resistance similar to redwood.
Environmentalists
had long criticized the government for granting
logging
rights within the reserve. Starting around 1997, some of the
more
radical European groups began an intensive public relations
campaign
attacking the big forestry companies for imperiling a
supposedly
protected forest.
In
addition, the World Bank and other international lending
organizations
were putting pressure on Gabon to improve its
environmental
record.
All
this culminated in meetings in Gabon over the last few months in
which
representatives of Isoroy and other companies said they would
agree
to give up the rights within the reserve if they received other
logging
rights in return -- and also if they were at least allowed to
cut the
rich okoum‚ stands in the southeast.
Biologists,
including Dr. White, said this would be acceptable if the
highland
forests were added to the reserve. For the logging companies,
the
highlands present significant logistical challenges in any case,
requiring
expensive road construction and costly harvesting methods.
The
lesson in all this, Dr. White says, is that when forests are
carefully
studied, the priorities of biologists and loggers do not
always
clash.
Dr.
White said the lands and water minister, Mr. Onouviet, had
approved
a national forest inventory aimed at identifying other spots
to
protect and eventually turning them into a network of national
parks.
None of
this guarantees success, Dr. White noted, adding that for the
moment
Gabon's wildlife agency had only 13 staff members for a country
the
size of Colorado.
But he
said he was confident that he had shifted away from politics
and
bargaining sessions and returned to field work on mammals, this
time
outside the forests entirely.
"It
turns out there is a large population of humpback whales breeding
off the
coast of Gabon," he said in a telephone interview, just before
heading
off to fly over the ocean to try to spot them.
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