Sold down the river - Salva le Foreste

8SOLD DOWN THE RIVERNationalgovernments havecontinued theforest exploitationpoliciesintroduced by thecolonial powers.They aresupported andencouraged in thisby the multilateraland bilateralinstitutions towhom they areheavily indebted.EU involvement in Central Africa’s rainforestsMANY ARGUE THAT the Central African region is still subject to a system ofneo-colonialism, perpetuated by the former colonial powers, foreign capital and afew powerful elites at national levels. 11 France, Belgium, Germany, the UK andSpain all played a significant part in the colonial history of the region and all continue to bepowerful partners in terms of trade in resources and the direction of macro-economic policiesand conservation initiatives. They are joined in their endeavours by their EU partners, NorthAmerica and multilateral development banks, notably the World Bank and IMF. There arecountless instances that highlight which of the groups of countries – the colonial powers ortheir former colonies – maintain the balance of power, not least the structural adjustmentpolicies and conditionalities imposed by creditors. President Omar Bongo of Gabon, one of theAfrican leaders most closely allied with French administrations, is said to have describedFrance without Africa as being like a car without petrol and that Africa without France waslike a car without a driver. 12 For the most part, the former colonial countries, together with themultilateral institutions of which they are a part and the transnational corporations that areheadquartered in them, remain firmly in the driving seat, dictating the terms of developmentand conservation in the region.Since their independence several decades ago, most of the six countries featured in thisreport – Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo (Brazzaville), Democratic Republic ofCongo (formerly Zaire), Equatorial Guinea and Gabon – have experienced periods of oftenviolent political turmoil. None have yet achieved a robust democracy founded on the fullinvolvement of their citizens. All six countries find themselves unable to provide even basiclevels of education and healthcare for many of their citizens. They all have enormous debtburdens, paying multilateral and bilateral creditors huge sums in debt repayments each year.These crippling debt repayments, a lack of democratic space for meaningful civil societyinvolvement and corruption inhibit the emergence and implementation of policies that wouldfacilitate ecologically sustainable and socially just development.Forest management policiesWithin this context, national governments have continued the forest exploitation policiesintroduced last century or earlier by the colonial powers. They are supported and encouragedin this by the multilateral and bilateral institutions, to whom they are heavily indebted, as partof the structural adjustment policies and economic liberalisation programmes imposed bythese institutions as a condition of further lending. Thus, the primary goal of forest policies inthe region is to promote industrial timber production for export by allocating most of theforest as logging concessions. The policy framework put in place to facilitate this level ofindustrial exploitation has little regard for local peoples’ needs and rights nor the capacity of acountry’s institutions to monitor and enforce these policies. Forest laws themselves are oftenunclear or conflicting.Regardless of the wider issues of socially just development, within this narrow view offorests as a source of timber, serious problems exist in the region’s forestry sector. Nationallaws may set a minimum standard in terms of forestry management practices, but evenreaching that minimum standard seems to be the exception rather than the rule. Governmentsdo not have the capacity to monitor forestry companies’ operations nor to enforce legislation(not least because recent World Bank and IMF programmes have required reductions in thenumber of public employees and their salaries). Although on-the-ground data about forestryactivities is scarce from all six countries, it is clear from Cameroon, where the trade’s activitieshave begun to be monitored more closely by civil society and the Ministry responsible forforests, that illegal logging and illegal trade in timber is rampant; in the East Province, wheremost timber production is currently taking place, it has been estimated that 50% of timberharvested is illegal. 13 Given the weak or non-existent capacity of other national governments tomonitor companies and enforce legislation, there is little to suppose that the situation is muchdifferent in the other countries of the region.The recent influx of Asian private capital into the Central African forestry sector hasbrought more aggressive and more openly short-term logging to the area, with a greatervariety of species being exploited in a short space of time, primarily for log exports. 14 Thisapproach has been compared unfavourably to the selective logging techniques practised byEuropean forestry companies. Whilst those who advocate industrial timber exploitation inCentral Africa’s forests argue that large concessions are required in order to practisesustainable forestry management techniques over a long period, selective logging techniquesthemselves are not proven to be sustainable, even in terms of sustained yields of timber overthe long-term. Most European forestry companies practise selective logging, whereby theyextract a few, high value timber species from the forest. Although this method of loggingcauses less damage to the canopy than clearcut logging, it is not without negative