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Rainforests Congolese Rainforest Zoning for Logging Protested Copyright 2004, Environment News Service February 12, 2004 http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2004/2004-02-12-01.asp LONDON, UK, February 12, 2004 (ENS) - More than 100 environment, development, and human rights groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) today called on the World Bank to stop plans for economic development of the country that would carve up the world's second largest remaining rainforest into industrial logging concessions. Internal World Bank documents obtained by the Rainforest Foundation and shared with the DRC groups reveal that the bank intends to "create a favorable climate for industrial logging" in the Congo, and envisions a 60 fold increase in the country's timber production. In a statement today the groups said plans for the development of DRC's forests would have "major repercussions for the rights and livelihoods of millions of Congolese citizens, with serious and irreversible impacts" on the forest environment. Covering around 1.3 million square kilometers, the rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo are the largest in the world after Amazonia, and have so far largely been spared extensive destruction. An estimated 35 million people live in and around these forests, including Bantu farmers, and Twa and Mbuti hunter-gatherer Pygmies. From 1998 the deadliest war in Africa's history has torn the country apart. But successful completion of the inter-Congolese dialogue last year has resulted in the establishment of a transitional government of national unity that is supposed to lead the DRC to elections within 30 months. Despite the ceasefire, the eastern DRC remains overrun by numerous armed rebel groups and militias, plundering gold, diamonds and valuable minerals, terrorizing, looting, raping and killing villagers, and destroying social infrastructure, warned the International Medical Corps in a report last month. To stabilize the country, the international community is encouraging and monitoring its economic reconstruction, but the Rainforest Foundation warns that a comprehensive new Forest Code adopted in August 2002, supported by the World Bank and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, will lead to widespread rainforest logging. The DRC's entire rainforest would be zoned and parceled out to logging companies, says the Rainforest Foundation, warning, "Congolese environmental and human rights groups, and people living in the forest, have not been consulted about the new laws, which represent a threat to the livelihoods of millions of impoverished Congolese people, who depend on the forest for their survival." The zoning and logging plans are detailed in World Bank Forestry Sector Mission reports on the DRC from 2002 and 2003. The World Bank was involved with the development and adoption of the new Forest Code, which is one of several new codes governing mining, forestry, labor and investment. The bank and the FAO now are supporting the development of a series of new laws that will implement the Code. Both agencies are also involved in preparing a national forest zoning plan, which will define areas for logging, conservation and community use. The zoning is intended to put an end to illegal timber extraction, a goal the international community supports. Members of the UN Security Council on Wednesday heard a briefing by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the DRC. After the briefing, Security Council President Wang Guangya of China said that members of the Council "stressed the need for the extension of state authority, security sector reform, strengthening the rule of law and economic reconstruction, an end to illegal exploitation of natural resources and to impunity." But the Congolese groups said today that their rainforest is about to be stripped away by law, and without consulting the people who will be most affected. Joseph Bobia, spokesperson for the Congolese development organisation, CENADEP, said, "The World Bank and the FAO are supposedly committed to involving the public in major new projects, especially those that affect the laws and policies of poor countries. However, in the Congo, there has been no meaningful consultation with civil society over the proposed new forestry laws, or the re-zoning of land, that will potentially see much of the country turned into a vast logging concession." Based in Kinshasa, CENADEP is the National Centre for Development and Popular Participation, a group which aims to involve large numbers of people in the reconstruction and development of the country. Speaking on behalf of the Rainforest Foundation UK, Simon Counsell said, "The World Bank must strictly apply its own environmental and social safeguards, and fully respect international laws, in order to avoid unleashing a wave of destruction on Congo's forests." In 2001, the DRC was singled out by the UN Environment Programme as one of 15 countries where international efforts at forest conservation should be focused. The tropical forests of Africa's Congo Basin are some of the last remaining large areas of primeval forested lands in the world, second only to the Amazon Basin. These forests support rare and endangered species such as the eastern lowland gorilla, mountain gorilla, chimpanzee, white rhino, okapi, and Congo peacock. They provide food, materials and shelter for over 20 million people and play an important role as a sink for the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. In a letter to UK Secretary of State for International Development Hilary Benn earlier this month, the Rainforest Foundation has asked the British government to intervene to halt the World Bank's plans to zone and parcel out DRC rainforests to logging companies. "The rights and needs of people living in, and depending on, the forest should not be sacrificed in pursuit of spurious economic benefits from the logging industry," said Counsell. The Rainforest Foundation was founded in 1989 by the musician Sting and his wife Trudie Styler, in response to the continued violation of the rights of indigenous peoples, and the destruction of the rainforests in which they live. Amazon growth burst puts brake on global warming Associated Press February 12, 2004 The growth rate of trees in the Amazon Basin's pristine rainforests has nearly doubled in recent decades, which may have helped slow global warming, but the forests are also dying off faster, scientists say. Scientists from countries including Britain, Italy, Germany, Brazil and the US have reported the Amazon findings in the British Royal Society's journal Philosophical Transactions B. Several scientists said the death rate of the forests was slower than the growth rate, causing an increase in the mass of living vegetation. Yadvinder Malhi, of the University of Edinburgh, said this increased material in the pristine areas - which comprise more than half of the Amazon rainforests - may have stemmed global warming because it helped clean carbon dioxide from the air and slow its build-up in the atmosphere. But Oliver Phillip, of the University of Leeds, warned that computer simulations suggested the benefits could not be taken for granted. "The process could be reversed in as short a space of time as the next two decades by the combined effects of deforestation and global warming." The scientists said tropical forests globally had warmed by half a degree in the past 20 years, with forecasts of a further increase of three to eight degrees by the end of the century. Dr Malhi said it was not known how much heat the trees could stand. If they died off the brake on global warming would go, too. Several of the scientists suggested causes of the growth changes in the forests, the most likely being increases in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and surface air temperatures, and possible continent-wide changes in sunshine. While the pristine Amazon rainforests are increasing their mass, others appear to be breaking up under climatic and human pressure. Selective logging punctures the forest canopy and allows sunlight to penetrate to the forest floor, Dr Malhi said, drying it out and making it much more vulnerable to fire. Ultimately, saving the world's remaining rainforests also requires a committed effort to move away from burning fossil fuels, the scientists said. "In the 21st century, we are moving into a human-made atmospheric and climatic situation that has not been experienced on Earth for at least 20 million years," Dr Malhi said. Amazon study finds natural brake on global warming Wednesday 11th February 2004 http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_864774.html Global warming may be slowing as trees in the tropical forests of the Amazon are growing and dying much more quickly, new British research suggests. The growth rate of trees in the Amazon Basin has nearly doubled in recent decades, which may have helped slow the earth from heating up, according to the research published by The Royal Society. But the death rate of the trees has also accelerated, scientists warned. They said the death rate was slower than the growth rate, apparently causing an increased biomass - or mass of living vegetation. And the change in these areas - making up more than half of the Amazon rainforests - may have acted as a brake on global warming. The increased biomass helps clean carbon dioxide from the air and slow its buildup in the atmosphere. The most likely causes of the growth changes are identified as increases in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and surface air temperatures, and possible continent-wide changes in sunshine. But researchers also warned the change cannot be taken for granted and could be reversed by deforestation. Logging may also be leading to more forest fires because it lets in more sunlight, which dries up the forest floor. Saving the world's remaining rainforests also requires a committed effort to move away from burning fossil fuels, the scientists said. In an issue devoted to tropical rainforests, The Royal Society's publication, Philosophical Transactions B, carries 17 reports from scientists across the globe. Yadvinder Malhi of the University of Edinburgh, a contributing scientist and one of the publication's editors, said: "In the 21st century, we are moving into a human-made atmospheric and climatic situation that has not been experienced on Earth for at least 20 million years. "We are deeply concerned with how the Earth's most biodiverse ecosystems will respond to these changes." The journal will be available in March from the Royal Society and at http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk. The Jakarta Post APP to develop forest conservation area February 11, 2004 Tony Hotland, Jakarta http://www.ran.org/news/newsitem.php?id=914&area=home One of Indonesia's largest pulp and paper companies, Asia Pulp & Paper Co. Ltd (APP), plans to convert about 76,000 hectares of its timber forest into a conservation area. The company is also completing a sustainability action plan, which covers the development of conservation areas, community development and the tracking of timber. "We want to be able to have renewable raw material input into our mills so that we can produce pulp and paper. "We're also responding to the aspirations of our stakeholders who want us to show how we're going to be a responsible corporation and citizens," APP director of sustainability and stakeholder engagement Arian Ardie told The Jakarta Post. APP currently manages around 900,000 hectares of industrial timber forest in the provinces of Riau and Jambi. The planned conservation area is in addition to the company's existing conservation areas. The country's forestry law says that all owners of industrial timber forests need to put aside 20 percent of their total area for conservation and development of indigenous trees and greenbelts. Arian also said that APP would invest around US$7 million for the conservation area, and around $50 million in total to accomplish the plan, which is projected to be completed in five years. "This is probably the largest budget a private company has set aside for conservation. It's also the first time for an Indonesian company in the natural resources sector to have such a commitment to sustainability," Arian said. He added that the company would soon seek approval from the government to convert part of its land into a conservation area, given that the land was purchased from the government under licenses for industrial timber forest. Arian saw the decision to set aside this portion of their land more as an investment rather than a loss. "This (decision) will assure (the availability of) our raw materials. Without doing that, there's a risk we won't have enough input to continue making pulp and paper. "It also enables us to continue to access the key markets around the world. Markets are demanding sustainability, and they want to know that the products they use come from well-managed forest," said Arian. Arian said that APP had two sets of action plans to help curb illegal logging. "We want to guarantee that we're not, by accident, taking in illegal logs. We are also trying to gain control of our own resources, and track the wood from the forest directly into the mill. "We're also going to establish some forest rangers and security patrols in this area to make clear where the boundaries are ... that this is a conservation area," he said. Arian stated that the company's exports to countries such as Japan, the European Union, Australia and the United States reached over $2 billion last year. NGOs urge timber companies to pay their debts Jakarta Post February 12, 2004 P.C. Naommy [Jakarta] http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailbusiness.asp?fileid=20040212.L04&irec=5 Environmental organizations and a corruption watchdog said on Wednesday they were giving 601 companies 30 days to pay reforestation funds and royalty arrears or they would announce their names to the public. The Indonesian Environmental Forum (WALHI), Greenomics Indonesia and the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) also urged the government to take action against the companies, which they said owed total arrears of Rp 1.28 trillion (US$152.38 million). Of the total reforestation funds and forest resources royalties, 60 percent will go to the central government to fund the national reforestation program, and the rest will go to provincial governments to fund reforestation in the provinces. With these arrears, the government should be able to rehabilitate about 426,667 hectares of forest, under a cost assumption of Rp 3 million per hectare. The NGOs noted that the arrears had increased by 36.3 percent from Rp 464.5 billion in 2001 to Rp 1.28 trillion in 2003. Companies in Kalimantan account for 56 percent of this figure, or Rp 1.2 trillion. Teten Masduki, director executive of the ICW, said the Indonesian forestry sector should ban these companies and their owners. According to Government Regulation No. 35/2002, a timber company that fails to pay its reforestation funds on time can be fined 2 percent of the total debt per month. But many companies fail to follow the regulations. The report from the NGOs indicates that seven out of the top 20 companies in arrears have asked the Ministry of Forestry to reschedule their debts. The executive director of Greenomics Indonesia, Elfian Effendi, said the government could prosecute the companies under Article No. 22/1997 of the Criminal Code. WALHI said the government had failed to make this case a priority. "When compared to the Rp 1.7 trillion BNI (Bank Negara Indonesia) case, this case is not too different, so the government should not make it a second priority," said Longgena Ginting, executive director of WALHI. According to Longgena, about 3.8 million hectares of forest are destroyed each year because of improper logging practices by both legal and illegal loggers. Fears that Laos' tropical paradise on road to ecological disaster 2004/2/11 AP http://www.chinapost.com.tw/detail.asp?onNews=1&GRP=A&id=22776 The mighty animals that made Laos the Kingdom of a Million Elephants are mostly gone. And every year the forests that once blanketed the country from end to end are replaced by more bald hillsides and scrubland where hardly a birdsong is heard. Long spared the depredations that scarred neighboring Vietnam, Thailand and China, Laos' 5.6 million people still enjoy a high ratio of water and forest resources, including 800 bird and 100 mammal species ranging from tigers to the recently discovered giant muntjack and saola. But conservationists are alarmed at what has been eradicated in less than a generation. They fear that minimal environmental programs run by creaky Communist Party machinery, riddled with corruption and supported by limited foreign aid, has no chance to slow the destruction. They argue that short-term profits from profligate logging and other ventures will be a disaster in the long run. "The only thing Laos can offer economically is its natural resources and biodiversity. That is its comparative advantage. If it loses that it's done for," says Roland Eve, country director of the World Wide Fund for Nature. Yet Laos is one of the world's poorest and least developed nations, and the pressure is intense to build hydroelectric dams and sell off tropical forests, legally or otherwise. Traveling the 450-kilometer (280-mile) length of National Highway 13, which runs north-south through the heart of Laos, the only patches of viable forest are inside ravines or on mountain slopes too steep to log. During the dry season, smoke from woodlands cleared for farming cast a hazy shroud. Forest cover has shrunk from 70 percent of Laos' total area in the middle of the 20th century to less than 40 percent today _ and possibly far lower, environmentalists say. Many woodlands are described as "dead" due to over hunting. Near the northern town of Udomxai, a Kamu tribal girl holds up two dead civet cats by their tails alongside several braces of tiny birds, trying to tempt passing bus passengers. In the town's market, civet meat, selling for 20,000 kip per kilogram (90 U.S. cents a pound), lies next to the carcasses of multicolored parrots and other forest creatures. "Everything in Laos is considered food, except maybe cockroaches," says Troy Hansel of the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society. Wildlife is also used in traditional medicines and tonics, such as a concoction of leaf monkey, porcupine stomach and bamboo rat mixed in alcohol that is said to infuse its drinkers with the power of trees (since all three animals feed on them). But experts say traditional local consumption isn't the real threat to wildlife and woods, at least over the next two decades. "The illegal trade to China is the major danger, as it is to all the adjacent countries," author Gordon Claridge says of the Chinese appetite for everything from turtles to tigers. "Whenever there are in-depth studies of trade in a particular wildlife group, it seems that China comes up as the major destination." Claridge and his wife, Hanneke Nooren, are authors of "Wildlife Trade in Laos: the End of the Game," which details the trade and involvement in it by Lao government and military officials. Since the book appeared in 2001, the sale of wildlife in Laos' markets and restaurants has been less blatant, conservation workers say, but they suspect much dealing has gone underground. "The government says no logging, no shooting wildlife and no smoking opium, and along the roads people are afraid. But deeper inside they do it all after dark," trekking guide Somphone Rattanachindavong says, just as another gunshot is heard in the distance from inside the Luang Namtha Nam Ha National Biodiversity Conservation Area. In the northern highlands, the 224,400-hectare (860-square-mile) reserve is one of Laos' biggest wilderness tracts. Among its denizens are a few wild elephants, once plentiful symbols of royal power that are now scattered in shrinking, furtive herds. The 20 protected areas, first decreed in 1993, cover 14 percent of the country, but they are derided by critics as "paper parks." The government allocates just 4 million kip (US$500) yearly for each reserve, leaving them unguarded against slash-and-burn farming, livestock grazing, illegal logging and game poaching. In addition, U.N. reports say the building of hydroelectric dams will harm 12 of the 20 reserves. A dozen of the parks lie along international frontiers, making it even easier for smugglers to work. The biggest illegal trade involves wildlife and flora being sneaked into Vietnam and then funneled on to China, where their use in traditional medicines and food has increased greatly since the late 1980s when the Chinese economy began to prosper. "The government is more aware of environmental problems but doesn't have the human resources to tackle them," says Latsamay Sylavong, who works for the Switzerland-based World Conservation Union. Laos has only a handful of trained officials, no experts in birds or elephants and no local activist groups concerned with the environment. None of the country's old-style Communist leaders, who are the real decision-makers, have shown interest in environmental issues. Latsamay says the government is focused on economic development, including the building of roads into remote communities. "Suddenly income-earning opportunities, like wildlife sale and logging, come to people's doorsteps and most can't resist them. They don't think about the future," she says. "And the government thinks only about building a road, but this opening up comes without education." CONTENT COPYRIGHT The Sources Specified Above. THIS CONTENT IS INTENDED SOLELY FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. |
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