Sold down the river - Salva le Foreste

62SOLD DOWN THE RIVERspectacular waterfalls which act as natural barriers to theforest. Rougier has a concession which lies partly withinthe area and, despite its agreement with IUCN not to logthere, it has driven access roads into the area and startedlogging amid local and international protest. 233 Rougier issaid to have sought a presidential decree to confirm itsright to log in the area (the President’s wishes are abovethe law). 234 A flight over the area by US conservationists inSeptember 1998 revealed that Lots 12 and 13 had beenquite heavily logged, with logging in Lot 13 appearing tobe “rapid, intense, and highly destructive. It appears thatalready about 28,700 ha have already been exploited”. 235In response to criticisms, the company signed aConvention to declare the falls of Mingouli a protectedarea on 11 February 1998 with the Gabonese ministry offorests. 236 According to Rougier, the company has cededback to the Government 6,750 hectares of its concessionsto preserve the site of Mingouli and to ensure itsprotection. 237The Lopé Reserve in Gabon has also been the focus ofcontroversy (see Gabon, page 45). Because of legalconfusion, logging licences had been issued in the reserveeven though it was a protected area in which suchactivities are prohibited. Following significantinternational pressure, Rougier and Leroy Gabon (seeSonae, below) agreed in July 2000 to cease logging there.Rougier agreed to hand over 18,000 hectares of Lot 31 inthe Lopé Reserve to the government and proposed thatMont Iboundji be declared a Sanctuary. 238Both France and the European Union seemedcommitted to releasing funding during the year 2000 forthe construction of an all-weather road linking thecomparatively isolated northern region of Gabon both toCameroon and to the Transgabonais railway at Ndjolé. 239Rougier, the only major French logging company to haveoperations near the route, would benefit, along with theMalaysian company, Rimbunan Hijau. Rougier also has adirect and indirect stake (through SNBG – see SNBGfeature page 46) in the Transgabonais railway.SAFISAFI SL is a Spanish company based in Valencia. 240 It hasa logging concession and processing factory in EquatorialGuinea. The concession covers 30,000 ha, located in thedistrict of Mongomo – Welenzas, and the companyexports timber to Spain, France, Germany and theNetherlands. 241SONAEThe Sonae group, headquartered in Portugal, is the world’slargest wood board business, ahead of the US-basedGeorgia Pacific and Louisiana Pacific. 242 A diversifiedgroup of companies, Sonae includes several significanttimber businesses that are all interconnected with eachother: Tafisa of Spain, Glunz of Germany and Isoroy ofFrance. The Sonae group owns 85% of Sonae Industria,which in turn owns 87% of Tafisa (Tableros y Fibras SA)of Spain, which in turn acquired 97% of Glunz ofGermany in 1999. 243 Through Glunz, Tafisa now ownsIsoroy of France (which Glunz acquired from the Frenchcompany Pinault – now part of Pinault Printemps Redoute- in 1992). Isoroy, Europe’s largest producer of tropicalplywood, is the parent company of a number ofcompanies operating in the Congo Basin, of which LeroyGabon is the most prominent. Isoroy has long beencriticised by environmentalists. Its recent acquisition bySonae may herald a more ecologically-considerateapproach in Gabon (see below) if the new ownership putsin practice concrete actions towards achieving acceptablelong-term sustainable forest management.CameroonIsoroy and the French company Becob (now owned byPinault Printemps Redoute) had a minority share in theformer Cameroonian parastatal timber company,SOFIBEL, 244 which was privatised during 1993 afterserious mismanagement.Central African Republic (CAR)Through Leroy, Isoroy used to own a majority share inSICA Bois (Société Industrielle Centrafricaine) which helda 100,000 hectare concession in CAR. 245Equatorial GuineaSonae’s principal local subsidiary, CompañiaEcuatoguineana de Okumé, was inactive during 1998. 246Isoroy had operations in and bought timber fromEquatorial Guinea during the mid-1990s. 247 During thelate 1990s, Isoroy sought to acquire concessions which ithad previously worked, but eventually gave up, frustratedby the Malaysian company Rimbunan Hijau’s relationshipwith the Minister of Forests (see Equatorial Guinea, page42). Rimbunan Hijau’s subsidiary Shimmer eventuallygained access to these concessions for itself. 248GabonLeroy GabonIsoroy’s subsidiary, Leroy Gabon was established in1976. 249 During 1997, Leroy Gabon held 654,000 hectaresof concessions and produced 154,000 cubic metres oflogs. 250 Producing 7% of the country’s Okoumé output,Leroy Gabon is the third largest timber company inGabon. 251, 252 Until the early 1990s, Isoroy also owned amajority interest in SHM (Société de la Haute Mondah)(see Interwood, page 59).One of former French President Mitterand’scontroversial national prestige projects, the NationalLibrary in Paris, consumed huge quantities of Okoumésupplied by Leroy Gabon. 253 Leroy Gabon has tried tobrand its timber as coming from sustainably managedforests, but has gained little credibility to date. It drew upits own quality mark, “Eurokoumé label”, 254, 255 and wasgranted preliminary certification by the ForestStewardship Council (FSC), but such certification wassoon exposed as unwarranted and the certificate wasrevoked in 1997. 256Leroy and a number of foreign-owned loggingcompanies based in Gabon, notably NSG and Rougier,have held concessions for many years covering part of theLopé Reserve. 257 The Lopé Reserve, created in 1946, wasthe first protected area in Gabon. Since then, its status haschanged over time, leading to the contradictory positionwhere logging licences are valid in an area where allforestry exploitation is forbidden. 258Leroy’s concession in Lopé (Lot 32) was first assignedin 1983 to SONG (Société d’Okoumé de la Ngoumé),which had a relationship with the Spanish company Alena,