Gabon gambles on sustainable logging to prevent deforestation

How Central African countries like Gabon manage their share of the world’s second-largest rainforest is critical.

The so-called lungs of Africa store more carbon per hectare than the Amazon, help regulate temperatures, and generate rain for millions in the arid Sahel and distant Ethiopian highlands.

On Monday, more than 100 global leaders pledged to halt and reverse deforestation and land degradation by the end of the decade, underpinned by $19 billion in public and private funds to invest in protecting and restoring forests.

The joint statement at the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow was backed by the leaders of countries including Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which collectively account for 85% of the world’s forests.

Gabon faces a conundrum as its relatively untouched share of the Congo Basin rainforest makes it one of the world’s most forested countries, a haven for endangered animals and one of the few net absorbers of climate-warming carbon dioxide.

But with the oil industry that fuels 45% of its economy facing decline, self-styled ‘Green Gabon’ wants to ramp up other industries while maintaining its forest cover above 85%.

In the west of the country, lumberjack Rodrigue Mboumba uses
his chainsaw to topple a 130-foot (40 metres) tropical eveuss tree into the
surrounding rainforest.

“It’s heart-wrenching because we’re destroying part of
the environment,” he said. “We have to cut this tree, get it out, and
sell it so we can make a living.”

The next day, his team spotted animal prints in the mud near
the giant stump. A leopard and a gorilla had been past.

Gabon’s Forests Minister Lee White believes logging is part
of the solution. He says carbon-conscious felling, stiffer regulation, and more
local wood processing will generate value from the forests while minimising
environmental damage.

White – a biologist and former Wildlife Conservation Society
officer – said halting industrial logging, as some environmentalists wish, was
not realistic.

“Let them come here and show me how to manage the
forest and how to create jobs for the Gabonese people and how to replace the
oil economy that we’re going to lose,” he said.

“There has to be a fair deal for Gabon. And we believe
the fair deal does involve sustainable forestry,” he said. “If you do
it right, you keep the forest. If you do it wrong, you lose the forest.”

Gabon reckons it can maintain the forests allotted to
logging concessions, which cover 60% of the country, by permitting just one or
two trees to be cut per hectare with 25-year gaps to let the areas recover.

SHOWING GUMPTION

A means of limiting emissions promoted by The Nature
Conservancy is part of Gabon’s forest plan.

Reduced Impact Logging for Climate (RIL-C) can lower
emissions by minimising collateral damage from tree-felling, according to a
2019 study in the journal Forest Ecology and Management.

This means making sure that logging companies mind their
carbon impact, build narrower roads, fell trees in the direction that causes
least damage, and use less destructive equipment.

With The Nature Conservancy, Gabon has tested
RIL-C and plans a nationwide roll-out that it forecasts will help cut logging
emissions 50% by 2030 and maintain low deforestation and forest degradation,
even as timber production grows 20%.

“The crux lies with the implementation of course,”
said Gijs Breukink, a forestry coordinator at the World Wildlife Fund, which
backs RIL-C as a tool for responsible forest management.

But he and other forest scientists warn that without proper
oversight, even so-called sustainable logging often opens up areas to illegal
felling, poaching and agriculture.

To combat these threats, Gabon must monitor its forests
closely and not rely on outside auditors like the Forest Stewardship Council
(FSC), said Florida University biologist Francis Putz, who worked on the
original RIL-C research.

Gabon’s plan “shows some gumption”, Putz said.
“I don’t know how successful they’re going to be. But so far, it seems
like a brave and well-informed effort.”

Democratic Republic of Congo, with the largest share of
Congo Basin rainforest, demonstrates the risks of poor management. It lost
nearly 500,000 hectares of primary forest in 2020, second only to Brazil,
according to Global Forest Watch.

UNFORTUNATE BAGGAGE

White wants to show Gabon is serious about tackling illegal
logging, which before he was appointed in 2019 accounted for nearly 40% of the
$800 million timber industry, according to ministry estimates.

His predecessor was fired over a scandal involving hundreds
of missing containers of protected kevazingo wood.

“Unfortunately, we have some baggage,” White said.

The government now requires all concessions to get FSC
certified. It is the main global scheme for certifying sustainable wood-based
products, but some NGOs say it is no guarantee forests have been adequately
protected.

Gabon is also working with the London-based Environmental
Investigation Agency on a timber-tracing system, while Gabon’s space
observation agency is monitoring forest cover.

Every morning, trucks piled with trees enter Gabon’s Special
Economic Zone – epicentre of its value-added timber ambitions after a 2009 ban
on unprocessed log exports.

The wood’s legal credentials are checked before it is
stacked for processing. Some trunks are turned into planks and plywood sheets,
others into high-end furniture.

Instead of the $200 per cubic metre Gabon once
earned from raw wood exports, plywood fetches $500 and furniture up to $3,000,
while the extra processing has created 8,000 new jobs, said Igor Simard, Gabon
manager of the firm that oversees the site.

If it can develop more local expertise, Gabon could add up
to $1.56 billion of value by making fine furniture from the 500,000 cubic
metres of wood exported annually as sawn timber, the African Development Bank
says.

Around 450 km south of Libreville, through seemingly endless
rainforest, residents of the town of Mayumba are hoping a new sustainable land
management business will provide jobs.

“We hope companies will come and bring this place to
life,” said shopkeeper Jean-Christophe Elenga.

“The forest is really enormous,” he
said, when asked about logging’s environmental impact. “It will always
provide.” Courtesy: www.reuters.com