Subject: BIOD: Gabon Forest Certification and Threats
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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Forest Council Takes Action on Gabon's Forests
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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
http://forests.org/amazonweb/
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
Status: Copyright 1997, contact source for reprint permissions
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" ---------- */
Copyright 1997 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
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withdrawn its ''environmentally sound'' certification from a Franco-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)
All rights reserved
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