Op-ed by Ngembeni Wa Namasso, special to mongabay.com
The Declaration on REDD+ expected as part of ongoing climate talks in Durban, South Africa, by the Central Africa Commission on Forests (COMIFAC) and some donor countries, was released, Wednesday, December 07, 2011.
To many observers this declaration is a ritual and therefore, expected after every meeting by ‘high-level’ decision-makers on forests from that part of the World. However, closer examination would reveal evidence of donor inertia; three tendencies – the forward, the going-it-alone and the going-along; some cracks appearing in the commission, and some face-saving gestures made.
Firstly, there is good news! The Congo Basin remains strongly committed to forest management; yet, it is a zone experiencing low investment in the forestry sector, insufficient flexibility in REDD+ readiness and weak integration of the forestry sector with growing pressures for land from international investors. The bad news is however that, moving towards a genuine and tangible consensus for REDD+ in the Congo Basin will require much more than intentions and declarations.
Firstly, the prominence of ‘intent’ in the title of the declaration is telling. From the region’s recent history on REDD+ since Bali in 2007, through COP16 2010 Cancun, Mexico, to the grand standing of the “Summit of 3 Tropical Forest Basins of the World” held in Brazzaville, May/June 2011, rounding-off 2011 with a declaration of intent seems a bit lame. Few can see COMIFAC, led by the vigorous doyen of Central African forestry, architect of the Brazzaville summit; H.E. Henri Djombo of the Republic of Congo, settling for a declaration of ‘intent! A declaration with ‘intent’ as the highest water mark is covered by the fingerprints of donor inertia.
For observers of the REDD+ process in the Congo Basin, COMIFAC countries exhibit three types of attitude vis-à-vis REDD+ readiness. Type 1 – are the forward countries with high forest/people ratio, weak road infrastructure and prospects for immediate foreign investments. Type 1 countries generally expect substantial windfalls from rapid REDD+. The republic of Congo and Democratic Republic of Congo fall into this first category. Type 2 – are countries going-it-one, somewhat trending away from the REDD+ option as currently structured. They have a strong natural resources base, higher prospects for foreign investments. They also have a high forest/people ratio and a strongly independent, even nationalist character. Gabon and Equatorial Guinea fall in this Category. Type 3 – are countries going-along, fearing negative reciprocity if they don’t. These countries have enjoyed historic forestry leadership and have made investments in COMIFAC. Some have perhaps dwindling forests; they enjoy better road infrastructure and therefore relatively lower cost of foreign investments. Cameroon falls under this category. With shaky commitment to REDD+ Types 2 & 3 are actively espousing greater creativity and flexibility in REDD+ options. Type 1 countries on the other hand seem impatient for a faster REDD+ mechanism.
These apparent cracks in the COMIFAC facade are also demonstrated by the number of State flags not appended to the declaration. Of the ten (10) members of COMIFAC, the Flags of Sao Tome & Principe, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea are not included. This casts a shadow on the traditional togetherness of ‘COMIFAC’. Of the seven whose flags are appended, Chad, though proud of its parklands is not a typical forest country. The Central Africa Republic boasts modest amounts of tropical forests. Still the bulk of Chad is non forest. Rwanda and Burundi are both countries with relatively high population densities, Montaigne woodlands and small surface areas.
If the pre-Cancun/COP16, Brazzaville summit of May/June 2011 is anything to go by, it seems this declaration has been pushed by H.E. Henry Djombo, Minister of Sustainable Development, Forest Economy and the Environment of the Republic of Congo, and doyen of Central Africa Forestry Ministries. Some pundits would make light of this longevity, expecting rivalry, between the two Congos. After all, the DRC has more than 60% of the region’s forests. However, it may be precisely because of DRC’s forests and H.E. Henri Djombo’s longevity that, leadership advances by DRC’s H.E. Edouado Endundu, would clearly be overkill. With a below par Brazzaville summit on ‘3 forest Basins’, it seems quite plausible that this Durban Declaration is a success for H.E. Henry Djombo and a grace – saving act for COMIFAC.
In keeping with the spirit of the declaration however, a number of concrete steps must be taken.
In the coming years the COMIFAC region must explore a number of concrete sustainable forest management solutions. For decades forest governance has been talked about as if it belonged in another era, and little done to build capacity so citizen actors can be incentivized to take greater part in managing forests. With possible incentive mechanisms on the horizon the technical requirements for managing forest carbon seem clear and so are sustainable benefits from forests. It is now also clear that forests must be made more valuable standing, than converted. Investments in forests should lead directly to stronger local and national capacity to manage and market diverse products and services from natural forests without destroying them. Proxy – or less than direct strategies for managing natural forests have not succeeded.
Approaches to REDD+ must become more creative and longer term. Sub national options for marketing carbon under specific national circumstances should be looked at on case by case, country-by-country bases more carefully. More of the same medicine, for all countries is clearly not working and some countries are choosing other options and going-it-alone or just going-along for reasons other than sustainable forest management. The use of donor funds to support REDD+ should be directed towards investments in keeping forests, natural by moving to a higher level of valorization of products and services from natural forests.
The use of the term ‘Country’ in international forest policy communications needs to be clearly unpacked to mean not national governments or their representatives exclusively, but all the citizens in the COMIFAC countries – each according to their skills, interest and resources, and including state agents. Such distinction is now necessary as more citizens have or are acquiring needed knowledge and skills and want to become involved; to work as partners with foreign collaborators and their governments. Citizens no longer want to be ‘convened’ by Government or foreign experts as has been the status quo. Arguably, State forestry agents in COMIFAC countries are currently over-saturated with responsibilities, while sectors like national research, institutions of higher learning, nongovernmental organizations and ordinary entrepreneurs can often be without business, without funds and resources with which to support the forestry sector. Diversification of support to all these sectors is the way to go for forest and climate work in the Congo Basin.
Finally, COMIFAC countries must clearly demonstrate awareness of how global demands for agricultural lands are being taken on-board in current forest and climate change mitigation work. The only way skills can be developed, focus maintained on competing land and forest uses; make citizens into actors, take-on their livelihoods concerns, their fears and interests, is to enlarge the forest and climate process and to support a truly national consensus; one that is measurable, verifiable and reportable.
An interview in four parts with Paula Kahumbu, Executive Director of WildlifeDirect, provides detail and context on the use of the neurotoxic pesticide Furadan to kill lions and birds en masse in Kenya. Lions are down to around 2,000 individuals in Kenya. Kahumbu, recently awarded an Emerging Explorer by the National Geographic, and WildlifeDirect are working to pressure the government to estimate the environmental and human cost of Furadan.
Also known as Carbofuran, Furadan is manufactured by the Farm Machinery and Chemicals Corporation (FMC) in the United States. As of May 2009, the US banned Furadan from being used on any crop for human consumption due to its lethal toxicity. Still, FMC says it will continue to manufacture the pesticide for use abroad.
(01/19/2011) It’s a common image of the African savanna: vultures flocking to a carcass on the great plains. However, a new study has found that vulture populations are plummeting in Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve, a part of the Serengeti plains, due to habitat loss as well as the illegal killing of lions. Increasingly farmers and livestock owners have targeted lions and other big predators by poisoning livestock carcasses with toxic pesticides, such as Furadan. Not only illegal, such poisonings take their toll on other Serengeti wildlife, including vultures that perish after feeding on the laced carcasses.
(05/11/2010) Eight lions have been poisoned to death in a month in Kenya, according to conservation organization WildlifeDirect. Locals, frustrated by lions killing their livestock, have taken to poisoning the great cats using a common pesticide in Kenya called carbofuran, known commercially as Furadan.
(11/10/2009) On Monday October 26th a three-year-old girl mistakenly ate the pesticide Furadan (also known as carbofuran) in western Kenya. Her father, a teacher at a primary school, said that he had no knowledge of how dangerous the pesticide was, which he had purchased to kill pests in his vegetable garden.
Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the Green Belt movement, Wangari Maathai, started a tree-planting campaign to create a better world for the impoverished and marginalized people of her native country, Kenya. For such views, she faced threats of assassination, violence, and censorship from the government.
Now 71, Maathai speaks to Krista Tippett, the host of the radio show On Being, about the importance of trees, how ecology and human well-being interact, and where she finds her faith.
(05/26/2011) Tropical forest news last week was dominated by Indonesia and Brazil. Forest clearing has surged over the past year in parts of the Amazon, the Brazilian Government reported. Meanwhile, Indonesia’s President signed a moratorium on cutting some intact forest areas, as part of a landmark billion-dollar deal with international donors. But new research shows that Africa offers some of the greatest opportunities globally for restoring forests.
(05/13/2011) China’s response to large-scale erosion with reforestation is paying off according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS). The 10-year program, known as Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP), is working to turn some 37 million acres back into forest or grasslands after farming on steep slopes in the Yangtze and Yellow River basins had made them perilously susceptible to erosion and flooding.
(03/03/2011) In 1991, my nine-year-old daughter Rachel traveled with me to Guatemala where we were struck by the heartbreaking rural poverty and mudslides worsened by widespread deforestation. We vividly remember holding a three-year-old child who was so listless and malnourished he could scarcely lift his arms. The worry and fatigue on his mother’s face and the child’s condition affected us both profoundly, despite Rachel’s relative youth.
(02/28/2011) Spanning the entire continent of Africa, including 11 nations, the Great Green Wall (GGW) is an ambitious plan to halt desertification at the Sahara’s southern fringe by employing the low-tech solution of tree planting. While the Great Green Wall was first proposed in the 1980s, the grand eco-scheme is closer to becoming a reality after being approved at an international summit last week in Germany as reported by the Guardian.
(02/25/2011) The Indian government has approved a bold plan to expand and improve the quality of its forests as a part of the nation’s National Action Plan on Climate Change. The reforestation plan, dubbed the National Mission for a Green India (NMGI), will expand forests by five million hectares (over 12 million acres), while improving forests quality on another five million hectares for $10.14 billion (460 billion rupees).
Red hartebeest release. Photo courtesy of Colchester Zoo: Action for the Wild.
Three antelope species were recently released at the Umphafa Private Nature Reserve in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa in an ongoing effort to restore an over-cultivated area. In all 7 impala, 21 red hartebeest, and 22 blue wildebeest were released.
“These recent releases are exciting developments for UmPhafa. The releases of the wildebeest represent the first for this species on UmPhafa and the new populations of red hartebeest and impala will serve to top up our existing herds. It is hoped that these species will go on to breed in the future and help us on our way to reaching carrying capacity for these species,” said Rebecca Perry, Conservation Director, in a press release.
The reserve was opened in 2006 by Action for the Wild, the conservation organization of Colchester Zoo. To date, 13 species have been released in the 5,000 hectare protected area, including giraffe, zebra, blesbok, servals, African rock pythons, common reedbuck, nyala, waterbuck, leopard tortoises and white rhinos.
Impala release. Photo courtesy of Colchester Zoo: Action for the Wild.
Blue wildebeest release. Photo courtesy of Colchester Zoo: Action for the Wild.
One billion people in the world are going hungry–more than any other time in history. Yet food security remains a pretty low concern in most industrialized countries. That may not last long according to renowned environmentalist, Lestor Brown, who says that climate change, population growth, rising consumption of meat and dairy, and water issues could soon make food a flashpoint worldwide. Already, high food prices this year played a role in the Arab Spring revolutions and has pushed a number of countries, such as China and South Korea, to begin buying up land in Africa under century-long leases that could create further crises.
Lester Brown is the founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute.
(04/27/2011) The Asian Development Bank has warned that high food prices on the continent could push 64 million people in developing countries into extreme poverty, reports the AFP.
(03/07/2011) As the world’s largest migration in the Serengeti plains—including two million wildebeest, zebra, and Thomson’s gazelles—has come under unprecedented threat due to plans for a road that would sever the migration route, a far lesser famous, but nearly as large migration, is being silently eroded just 1,370 miles (2,200 kilometers) north in Ethiopia’s Gambela National Park. The migration of over one million white-eared kob, tiang, and Mongalla gazelle starts in the southern Sudan but crosses the border into Ethiopia and Gambela where Fred Pearce at Yale360 reports it is running into the rapid expansion of big agribusiness. While providing habitat for the millions of migrants, Gambela National Park’s land is also incredibly fertile enticing foreign investment.
(03/03/2011) Food prices in February hit a new record, breaking the previous one set in January and continuing an eight-month streak of rising prices, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Experts fear that rising food prices could lead to another food crisis similar to that of 2007-2008.
Born at the beginning of the year, a Grey’s zebra foal has made its first appearance at the Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) Bronx Zoo. Photo by: Julie Larsen Maher.
Listed as Endangered by the IUCN Red List, the Grevy’s zebra (Equus grevyi) population has fallen by 50% over the past two decades. As of 2008 there was estimated around 750 adult animals survive in the wild. The species survives in Kenya and Ethiopia. It may be present in Sudan as well.
Grevy’s zebra has suffered from increased competition for water and food with local livestock. Juveniles, particularly, have a difficult time surviving. Loss of water to irrigation and in places hunting are also of concern.
An adult cheetah, which had been smuggled and abused for the illegal pet trade, returns to the wild in Tanzania. Photo by: Annette Simonson.
Few people realize that cheetah’s, one of Africa’s great cats, are a target of the global wildlife trade. Yet these speedy predators are sought as exotic ‘pets’, especially in the Middle East.
As apart of this illegal pet trade, three adult cheetahs were recently seized at a residence in Tanzania’s capital, Arusha. According to a press release from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), the cheetah’s were being held in cages so low they could barely stand. ZSL worked with the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS), the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (TAWIRI), and the Tanzania Wildlife Division to secure the release of the cheetahs and then re-released them back into the wild at Tarangire National Park.
Satellite collars were fitted to two of the three cheetahs (including the one photographed) so they could be tracked by researchers.
“This is the first known case of cheetah trafficking in Tanzania and it worryingly suggests that the illegal trade of this protected species is increasing,” said Dr Sarah Durant of ZSL and WCS in a press release. “We hope the plight of these three cheetahs will raise awareness of the demand for big cats as pets in places such as the Middle East, and encourage increased law-enforcement at key trading hubs.”
The cheetah has been fitted with a satellite collar as seen in this close-up. Photo by: Annette Simonson.
Malagasy family helping fisherman take his boat out to sea . Photo by Rhett A. Butler.
Or, Guitarfish a Go-Go- Bribes and barrages in Belo-sur-Mer
By: Brian Jones, Blue Ventures Conservation in Belo-sur-Mer, Menabe, Madagascar.
YOU’VE got to admire the mettle of people who, despite the cards being seemingly insurmountably stacked against them, can still stick to their guns and stand up for what they believe in.
I didn’t give them much of a chance, but nevertheless, there they went, one-by-one, to stand in front of the assembled group of villagers and local authorities who had packed themselves into the sweltering cinderblock and sheet metal town hall. Each to express their exasperation over the arrival and unrelenting progress of the monstrosity that had come to be known simply as “the barrage”- a 4 kilometre long (although by some accounts as much as 8 km long) bottom-set fishing net aimed at catching sharks and guitarfish for their high value fins. Everyone who stood to say their bit that afternoon knew that healthy amounts of money had likely already passed into the hands of various authorities in the interest of a blind-eye being turned. Still, undaunted, there they went, to air their qualms, for better or worse.
“I mean, come on, the name gives it away – a “barrage”… barrages, by definition, block everything that comes their way. Obviously this is not in the interest of us local fishermen!” pleaded an exasperated Franҫois, the president of the local youth association.
Another young fisherman put it more bluntly: “If we allow this to continue, all that our grandchildren will know of sharks is from a picture in a book.”
The response by the representatives sent from the 70 strong team of shark fishermen who mostly hailed from Diego Suarez, a regional city at the northern tip of Madagascar, a few thousand kilometers away, was that all of their paperwork was in order, they all had their cards which proved they were registered traditional fishermen, their nets were of legal mesh size, and they were not breaking any Malagasy fishing laws. In a poverty-stricken country wrought by political turmoil, corruption and inadequate fisheries legislation, it’s quite possible they were right.
Be that as it may, considering the disparity between their 4+ kilometre shark nets and motorised vessels (bankrolled by a Chinese investor who had been denied a fishing permit by the National Fisheries Ministry, as one of them divulged after a few too many beers one evening) and the 100-200m nets cast from traditional dugout canoes by the local fishermen, it seems absurd to suggest that this is fair play.
The debate became more heated, as the “barrage-ists” became agitated, insisting, “There’s nothing you, the villagers, can do to kick us out. We’re going to keep fishing, like it or not!”
I tend to take a back seat in these type of meetings, and let the community take the lead, but I hastily pointed out that not one of the community members had mentioned kicking them out, simply that the size of their nets was unacceptable, and that they were welcome to stay if they used fishing gear more in-line with what the locals use, and more in the interests of promoting local sustainability. I suggested that their haste to mention that they were being kicked out was perhaps a sign of paranoia and indicative of the fact that they knew what they were doing was wrong, regardless of its legality.
As the meeting descended into chaos, and the unlit town hall descended into darkness, it was agreed that the barrage fishermen would produce all of their paperwork the next day (oh no, not the next day, as it’s a Sunday, and everyone needs their day off, but the day after that. . . ) which would then be sent to the regional authorities, and then on to the national authorities for verification, and then back to the blah blah blah. . . An accomplished exercise in buck-passing and stalling, resulting in a bureaucratic marathon that would surely result in the extirpation of the local shark population before anything was decided or actionable.
The meeting having achieved very few tangible results, the community hatched a plan. With the Kirindy-Mite Marine Protected Area (MPA) having recently received official protected status, they would secretly follow the barrage fishermen out the next morning when they checked their net, and verify whether or not the net was placed within the MPA limits. Spies staked out the barrage fishermen’s camp, and as they left just before dawn the next morning, one boat headed south and one headed north to check on their massive nets, the community members sprung into action. Cell phones relayed the trajectory of the two boats, and the one headed south was soon being tailed at a distance by a motorised canoe with angry, GPS and digital camera wielding fishermen and representatives of the National Parks Service.
Despite their repeated claims that their nets were not being placed within the MPA, there it was, clear as day, about one kilometre north of the island of Nosy Andriangory, smack dab in the heart of the protected area. After a brief verbal exchange, the net was hauled in, and within days the Captain of the regional police had been called to the village and the law had been laid down: If they wanted to avoid going to prison, the barrage fishermen were to get all of their nets out of the water immediately and were to leave the village within a week.
Like the American bison or the passenger pigeon the radiated tortoise (Astrochelys radiata) has gone from super-abundant to nearly extinct. The species could be gone by 2030 warn researchers. Photo by Robert Walker.
Once one of the world’s most abundant tortoises, numbering in the millions, Madagascar’s radiated tortoise is on the very brink of extinction. Killed for their meat by one of the world’s most impoverished people, new surveys last month by the Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA), The Orianne Society, and Nautilus Ecology have further confirmed the precipitous decline of this once common reptile.
“Traditionally, tortoise meat was served on special occasions, but now it is eaten on a daily basis. Hundreds of pieces of discarded tortoise shells litter the sidewalks in some communities. This staggering level of consumption is not sustainable,” explains Dr. Christina Castellano, Director of Turtle Conservation at The Orianne Society in a press release.
Armed poaching gangs are causing “the systematic extermination of this species” says Ryan Walker, a biologist with Nautilus Ecology.
Tortoise meat being prepared for sale in a poaching camp. Photo courtesy of The Orianne Society.
Radiated Tortoise shells litter the ground in the town of Tsiombe. Photo courtesy of The Orianne Society.
For more information on the demise of the radiated tortoise:
(04/05/2010) The radiated tortoise, once common throughout Madagascar, faces extinction within the next 20 years due to poaching for its meat and the illegal pet trade, according to biologists with the Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Returning from field surveys in southern Madagascar’s spiny forest, they found regions without a single turtle. Locals said that armed bands of poachers were taking truckloads of tortoises to be sold in meat markets. The tortoise is also popular in the underground pet trade, although it is protected by CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species).
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