Africa
Forests under threat
World Rainforest Movement
General coordination: Ricardo Carrere
Edited by: Hersilia Fonseca
Cover design: Flavio Pazos
© World Rainforest Movement
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Published in November 2002.
ISBN: 9974 - 7608 - 6 -0
The elaboration of this publication contents was made possible with support from NOVIB (The Netherlands) and from the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation. This book has been prepared with the financial support of the Rainforest Programme of the Netherlands Committee for IUCN (NC-IUCN/TRP). The views expressed, the information and material presented, and the geographical and geopolitical designations used in this product do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of NC-IUCN/TRP or the institutions and organisations providing NC-IUCN with funds.
Africa
Forests under threat
World Rainforest Movement
Contents
About this book
Africa: forests under threat
Central African Conference on Forests
In defence of Central African forests
Have small farmers deforested West Africa?
Resistance to oil industry
Carbon sinks and money needs
Nothing much at the Central African forestry ministerial conference held in Cameroon
European Union's major responsibility over deforestation
Logging one of the world's largest areas of primary rainforest
NGO statement at Ministerial Meeting on illegal logging
Angola
War destroys forests
Cameroon
Who conserves and who destroys forests?
EU fosters rainforest destruction
Timber ban relaxed
Structural adjustment promotes deforestation
Forest sector development in a difficult political economy
Tree plantations: a false alternative to deforestation in Cameroon
Research questions myths about fuelwood use and deforestation
Oil palm, people and the environment
Unequal equality between community forests and logging companies
The trees beyond the forest
Social and environmental impacts of industrial forestry exploitation
French companies' illegal practices in the forest
Forestry Group Rougier accused in French Tribunal
Chad - Cameroon
Menacing oil exploitation
The oil pipeline: response from the World Bank
The World Bank again shows who it serves
Oil revenues versus human rights and environment
Central African Republic
Transnational loggers in the forest
IMF, logging and mining
Logging companies destroy "Pygmies’" livelihoods
Congo DR
The uncertain fate of forests
The case of the Twa of the Kahuzi-Biega National Park
Pillage certified in Uganda?
Will Zimbabwe become a member of the logging club?
Millions of acres of forest under unsustainable logging
Forests Open for Business
Congo R
Shell's eucalyptus plantations now provide even fewer jobs
Foreign loggers deplete forests and livelihoods
Increased logging activities
Cote D'Ivoire
World Bank promotes oil palm and rubber plantations in Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire
Increasing conflict between smallholders and oil palm estates
IMF, cocoa, coffee, logging and mining
The sacred forest, a community protected area
Equatorial Guinea
Logging ban and logging on the rise
Transnational loggers in the forest
Eritrea
Sustainable forest use threatened by government policies
Ethiopia
Deforestation and monoculture plantations behind the fires
Gabon
Logging: The French colonial approach
The endangered primary forests
Logging companies' promised "development"
Rich forests or cheap source of wood?
Polemic agreement on the Lope Reserve
Forests and the climate debate
The new Forestry Law and transnational companies
More logging concessions in the hands of foreign firms
Gambia
A different type of forest degradation
A case of community forest management
Ghana
FAO supports private plantations
The impacts of mining
What's hidden behind the Bui Dam Project?
The documented impacts of oil palm monocultures
IMF, mining and logging
Protected areas at the expense of people do not guarantee conservation
Ancient tradition in community forest management
Kenya
Violence against forest activists
Ogiek people's fight to protect their forest
The future of the Ogiek and their forests
Mangroves threatened by Canadian mining company
Local peoples' land rights ignored
Resistance to the Sondu Miriu Dam project
International campaign for the Ogiek
Who favours and who destroys forest biodiversity?
Pollution and deforestation caused by Pan African Paper Mills
Is the government serious about forest biodiversity conservation?
Forest destruction for the benefit of government cronies
Forest degradation and the way ahead for conservation efforts
Liberia
World Bank promotes oil palm and rubber plantations in Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire
The silent destruction of the forests
Concerns over World Bank's promotion of rubber plantations
Civil war and transnational profit making
At the centre of it all is the indigenous community
Forest destruction backed by the government
Danish firm DLH violates its own principles on wood purchasing
The long chain of responsibility in forest destruction
Madagascar
Communities defend rainforests against Rio Tinto
Mangrove importance and threats
IMF opens up the country to mining
IMF-promoted mining threatens littoral forests
Malawi
Too many people?
Forests, health and life
Mali
The value of biodiversity in a fragile environment
Mozambique
Floods that originated in South Africa
Nigeria
Nnimmo Bassey imprisoned and released
WRM "unwittingly subversive"
Human rights abuses continue
Threatened mangroves
Oil and violence
Victory of local communities over Texaco
The struggle continues
A positive change in oil activities?
Cross River's forests need your help
Environmental racism
Shell sets forests on fire
Poverty, oil pipelines and death
At whose expense is oil drilled in the Niger Delta?
Shell's choice between profits and principles
Malaysian corporation to invest in palm oil production
Gold Medal to Shell: A mockery to the people
Palm oil deficit in a traditional palm oil producing country
People protect mangroves against shrimp farming
Godforsaken by oil
Rwuanda
The un-reported plight of the Batwa
Senegal
The hidden impacts of charcoal production
South Africa
More pulp industry development
"Social benefits" of industrial tree plantations
Good news
The ways of the powerful pulp industry
Exotic tree plantations are green wastelands
Privatizing plantations
Resistance to tree monocultures in grasslands
Industrial timber plantations - asset and liability
The Big Lie
What are the true costs of woodlots?
Just poetry and emotion?
Grassland ecosystem destruction by tree plantations
Quo vadis FSC?
The sad figures of employment generated by plantation companies
Where impact of plantations on water is accepted as fact
Tree plantations' impacts on bird populations
FAO forest definition a threat to biodiversity
Tanzania
Preservation results in human rights abuses
Where illegal logging is almost legal
Afforestation, reforestation and the real causes of forest destruction
Local people benefit from forest products
Another case of Norwegian "CO2lonialism"
Gold mining adds new problems to lake Victoria
Human rights, social justice and conservation
The death of the Rufiji Delta Prawn Project
Biodiversity loss linked to IMF-promoted commercial agriculture and mining
Traditional knowledge in forest restoration
Community-based forest management as a way forward for conservation
Togo
Community rights and forest conservation
Uganda
Carbon sinks and Norwegian "CO2lonialism"
The same old story about dams
The Bujagali Dam: A useless giant
Bujagali dam project questioned by World Bank's Inspection Panel
Zambia
The Minister's silence on the timber business
Causes of deforestation linked to government policies
Deforestation, timber industry and free trade
Zimbabwe
A different type of top-down approach
Demystifying the role of "the poor" in forest destruction
About this book
This book gathers a selection of articles published in the monthly electronic bulletin of the World Rainforest Movement (WRM), addressing the issue of the processes leading to the destruction of African forests and the struggles developed there to protect and use these forests adequately.
The level of detail and analysis in the articles varies greatly, as a consequence of the nature of the bulletin, which is intended to serve as a tool, both for individuals and organisations acting on a local level and for those working on an international scale. However we have included most of the articles as we consider that in some way they can all serve to generate resistance and solidarity movements regarding a subject such as this, of vital importance both for the survival of the African people and for the future of humanity as a whole.
We have not included the numerous sources of information on which the various articles were based, due to a lack of space. However, those who are interested in accessing these sources may do so through our web page, entering the “bulletin” area and looking for the year and month corresponding to the article in question.
Responsibility for this publication is shared between the editor of the bulletin Ricardo Carrere (international coordinator of the WRM) and the numerous individuals and institutions who contributed articles or relevant information for the preparation of articles. Errors that may have been made are the exclusive responsibility of WRM.
Beyond the authorship of the different articles – which finally is of scant importance – the true protagonists of this work are the thousands and thousands of people who suffer from the impacts of deforestation and forest degradation, who resist appropriation of their territories and who generate environmentally and socially appropriate alternatives for its use. The articles attempt to reflect the struggles of these protagonists, with the central aim of supporting them. To all of them, we pay our most sincere homage.
9
Africa: forests under threat
Africa: forests under threat
On analysing the situation of forests in Africa, it is first necessary to begin by clarifying some false assumptions. The first has to do with their location. On looking at maps focussing on the subject, a large green area covering the tropical region of the continent will be seen. The impression it gives is that forests only exist in that area. However, this is not so, as almost all African countries have part of their territory covered by some type of forest, from Mali to South Africa.
Clearly the forests of Mali and South Africa are not the same as the gigantic forest masses of Gabon or the Congo, but this does not mean that they are less important, either from an ecological or from a social standpoint. The fact is that Africa possesses an enormous diversity of forest ecosystems, extending over a major part of the continent.
The second assumption is related to the state of these forests. Here the advertised image does not focus on the tropics, but on the arid, semiarid and savannah regions, where the role of impoverished populations eliminating forests to increase areas for their crops or for cattle-raising, while cutting down the few trees left to provide firewood is underscored. The generalisation of this image is also totally erroneous.
What is true is that most of the forests in Africa are suffering from more or less acute deforestation or degradation, which is not only affecting ecosystems and the means of life of the local populations --and in particular that of women-- but is also having an impact on humanity as a whole through global climate change and the loss of biodiversity.
There is agreement on the need to ensure the conservation of forests in general and those of Africa in particular, but their conservation depends first of all on a sound analysis of the causes behind these processes, and secondly on the adoption of adequate measures to address them. As has been accepted by the various United Nations processes relevant to forests, such causes are divided into direct (or immediate) and indirect (or underlying) causes, the former being a result of the latter.
Evidently, direct causes vary from country to country, in accordance with the specific conditions prevailing in each one, but are mainly linked to the economic resources available in each type of forest.
It is not by accident that, in the case of tropical forests, commercial logging operations are one of the main causes of deforestation and degradation. The reason is very simple, here it is possible to find enormous trees of species having very valuable wood, with a market in the Northern consumer countries. Gabon, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Congo-Kinshasa, Congo-Brazzaville and Equatorial Guinea are today the countries most whetting the appetites of transnational forestry companies, following their having practically depleted the forests of West Africa.
In other cases, the economic resources are not the forests or their wood, but oil or minerals contained in the ground. The exploitation of these resources has resulted not only in the destruction of considerable forest masses, but also in the widespead contamination of the ecosystem, poisoning soils and water, decimating the local fauna and, what is even worse, affecting the health and living conditions of the local population. Such is the case of Nigeria, Ghana, Madagascar and Tanzania, among others.
In turn, in many countries the land in itself is the most important resource, resulting in the substitution of forests by agricultural crops, both of staples for local sale or commodities for export. Among the latter mention can be made of the plantation of rubber trees, alien species for wood production (pine, eucalyptus, acacia, cypress, etc.) and oil palm. Among these countries, the Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa and Congo-Brazzaville are to be highlighted, where forests and other ecosystems are destroyed to give place to one or more of these crops.
Also as a case of forest substitution by crops, mention can be made of a different kind of farming, that of shrimp farming. Its development has implied the destruction of wide areas of mangroves, in particular in Nigeria, Madagascar, Tanzania and Senegal. In spite of the accumulated world experience on the negative impacts of industrial shrimp farming, there are plans to develop this activity in other coastal counties of the continent and tests have already been carried out to analyse feasibility.
Unlike what has happened in other regions of the world, so far African forests have not suffered from the impacts of the construction of major hydroelectric dams, except for Uganda. Projects announced in Ghana and Kenya have apparently been discontinued. However the possibility has not been rejected that these and other projects might turn up again in the future.
In the framework of this set of direct causes, affecting wide areas of the continent’s forests, the use of firewood by local populations, for years advertised by the “experts” as one of the most important causes of deforestation, is clearly a minor cause, as has been shown by new studies on the subject, among which, mention should be made of a recent one prepared by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank itself[1].
However, whether this is an important direct cause of deforestation or forest degradation or not, the identification of direct causes is no more than a first step in analysing the problem. The second step consists of identifying the conditions that make it possible for the direct causes to be triggered off. That is to say, to identify the chain of causes – the underlying causes – that are behind these processes.