An Earth Day Reason Why Congo Matters

While the eyes of most journalists and activists are focused on the mineral riches of the Democratic Republic of Congo, another of the country's assets is being exploited with consequences that will be felt far beyond the center of Africa. It's the forest that covers 45% of the nation--the second largest tropical rainforest in the world. Properly managed and developed, the Congo's timber could be a perpetually-renewable resource that provides jobs, fuel, and food for millions of Congolese while it continues to give the rest of the world cleaner air and combats the effects of global warming. At the rate it's being exploited today, though, the Congo's rainforest will shrink to nearly half its size in the next fifty years.

The forests in DRC are amazingly diverse. As one of the few forest areas on the continent to have survived the ice age, they provide refuge for several large mammal species driven to extinction in other countries. Congo is known to have more than 11,000 species of plants, 450 mammals, 1,150 birds, 300 reptiles, and 200 amphibians, most of them protected by the rainforest.

In 2002, the government imposed a ban on new logging concessions. That ban was widely ignored as local officials often turned their heads in exchange for a few dollars while the timber companies cut as they pleased. The growing network of logging roads also opened up access to previously-ignored sections of the forest to local woodcutters, charcoal producers, and hunters. Today, according to Greenpeace, an area the size of Spain is under control of logging companies, some 30% of which was grabbed after the 2002 moratorium.

Last year, the World Bank, which has encouraged development of timber operations in the DRC, finally woke up to the results of their efforts and funded a six-month review of existing concessions to see if they conformed to basic standards. Of 156 deals examined, only 65 made the grade. The review found that most of the concessions adhere to no basic environmental standards and pay little or no tax to the central government.

In January, DRC's Environment Minister Jose Endundo told Reuters that those who had failed to make the grade would have to stop logging within 48 hours. "Upon notification of the cancellation decision, the operator must immediately stop cutting timber," he said. Considering the government's record in enforcing the original ban, I'm sure the chainsaws immediately fell silent.

Why should we care about a forest that's half a world away? Those forests are part of the cooling band of tropical forests around the equator that has been compared to a thermostat to moderate the earth's temperature. It's believed that deforestation is the second largest source of global emissions of CO2, the culprit behind global warming. Economist Sir Nicholas Stern says halting deforestation is the single most cost-effective way to fight climate change.

Halting deforestation doesn't mean letting people starve so trees can grow. Modern forest management techniques allow for harvesting of timber and use of the land for economically-advantageous activities while ensuring that the forest has a chance to rejuvenate itself. Millions of jobs can be created from not just logging operations but downstream processing and value-adding manufacturing of wood products. That approach to forestry management is possible only when timber companies are monitored and laws are enforced.

Any encouragement we can give Congo to protect and manage its tropical rainforest will pay off for the entire world.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo.

Chicago Reader Asks About Congo Rainforest

Recent correspondence with a reader in Chicago raises a delicate quandary:

"...from what I understand, the DRC has the most biodiverse ecosystem outside of the Amazon River Basin and if the DRC ever gets its act together and is able to extract and control those resources, that ecosystem would inevitably be threatened. Could it be that, environmentally, the DRC is better off now than it would be if the natural resources were exploited?"

Here was my response:

The DRC does indeed have the second-largest tropical rainforest in the world. It is a treasured resource for everyone on the planet. That doesn't mean, however, than it cannot be of great economic benefit to the country. In fact, if the timber resources were properly managed, the ecosystem's future could be enhanced.

I've written about this before in Congo Rainforest Irony, which talks about some of the pluses and minuses of timber development activities in the DRC. The full benefits of this renewable resource, though, won't be realized until there is stronger oversight of contracts and monitoring of logging activities, both of which are expensive undertakings when so many other needs are crying to be met.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo.

Congo Rainforest Irony

The irony was leafy green and growing like a giant red mahogany tree as conflicting reports on logging in the Congo were released on the same day this month. In one, The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) says Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification has now been achieved for forestry operations on nearly 3 million acres in the Congo River Basin. In the other, a World Bank-backed review of all timber contracts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) said that more than three quarters of its logging deals should be canceled for not meeting necessary standards.

Ecologists calling for more logging? Government demanding a halt? It's the kind of news that makes the Congo endlessly fascinating.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is home to 358-million acres of rainforest, the world’s second-largest tract of oxygen-producing, air-scrubbing greenery. It’s a rich resource among the many natural assets (like diamonds, the prize at the center of Heart of Diamonds, my novel of the Congo) that have attracted exploiters from all over the globe for over a hundred years. According to Greenpeace, more than 40% of it will disappear before timber industry chainsaws by 2050.

It doesn’t have to happen, of course, and steps are being taken to prevent an ecological and economic disaster of those proportions. Unlike diamonds, trees are a sustainable resource. Careful management of forests can provide fuel, lumber, and pulp—thus generating jobs, tax revenues, and economic stimulus to a country that sorely needs them—while maintaining the environmentally-critical forest itself for the long term. That’s what the FSC certification is supposed to encourage. Laurent Somé, WWF Central Africa Regional Programme Office (CARPO)'s Representative, says

"WWF is convinced that the adoption of responsible forestry schemes by logging companies will contribute greatly to the conservation of the Congo Basin forests and towards improving the national economy and also improve the livelihoods of local communities."

The critical element is governmental oversight of logging concessions to insure that logging companies practice sustainable forestry while living up to contracts that provide tax revenues to build desperately-needed roads, schools, and hospitals. The DRC review of the technical and legal aspects of 156 logging deals, mostly signed during a 1998-2003 war and subsequent corruption-plagued interim government, showed that only 29 of the contracts met the minimum standards required.

Among the contracts recommended for cancellation are 10 of 16 belonging to Portuguese-owned Sodefor, a unit of NST. Siforco, a subsidiary of Germany's Danzer Group, had three of its nine deals highlighted as corrupt while Safbois found both of its contracts on the cancellation list. Together the three companies account for more than 66 percent of all timber exported from Congo.

Many of the deals were signed despite a moratorium on logging contracts imposed by the DRC in 2002. According to Greenpeace, concessions were bought for pennies and tax and royalty payments avoided by manipulation of records, off-shore accounting shenanigans, and under-reporting of timber harvests. The DRC’s ability to bring the industry under control will be a key determinant of the Congo’s economic future.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds

Tags: romantic thriller, Congo, blood diamonds

Good Intentions Can Backfire In Africa

One of the most persistent problems faced by those trying to bring essential services to developing countries is illustrated by a story I read recently on Sociolingo’s Africa. Here’s a brief excerpt:

I guess I have been around long enough that I am rarely really shocked. However, a story on IPS News from Malawi caught my eye, and yes - I admit it - I am shocked. Read the following:

LILONGWE, Jun 27 (IPS) - Gladys Mawera’s face is contorted with pain -– both she and her newborn baby survived a complicated birth three days ago — but she has not been able to take the painkillers and antibiotics prescribed to her by the medical personnel at the Chiradzulu District Hospital in southern Malawi. The hospital has been without water for five days.

“I am disgusted with my own smell and that of my baby,” says Mawera, who is still wrapped in bloodstained linens as she cradles her child. “There is literally not a drop of water around here,” worries Mawera.

That last line in the highlighted paragraph does it for me. As you read on in the article your mouth drops further and further.

This is not some rustic hospital in the back of beyond. This is a state of the art modern hospital built in 2005 at a cost of 25 million dollars European Union funding which is trying to exist with highly erratic water supplies. In this state of the art hospital, x-rays services are suspended, operations are suspended, patients do not even have water to drink, nurses and doctors do not have water to wash in, linen cannot be washed. How can the hospital function?

It’s all about infrastructure–or the lack thereof–which is essential to building modern societies.

Before modern agricultural methods can be used to compete on world markets, all-weather roads and railroads must exist to take the commodities to market. Before manufacturing plants can operate and provide high-paying jobs, reliable electric power must be available. Before first-class health care can be provided, the hospital must have a plentiful supply of clean water, as this story shows.

We in the West take great pride in projects like the recently-announced $211 million (US) initiative to conserve rainforests in the Congo Basin through the use of advanced satellite camera technology and community-based conservation projects. Personally, I’d rather see the governments of Britain and Norway (who are funding the project), put that money into water towers and pumping stations, concrete roadways, and hydro-electric plants. Global warming is an important issue and there are no easy answers, but the people of Africa will never achieve their full potential until resources are committed to the building blocks of modern society.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds

Tags: romantic thriller, Congo, blood diamonds

Rainforest Disappears In Congo

The African Ministerial Conference on the Environment recently presented Africa: Atlas of Our Changing Environment, a study that features over 300 satellite images taken in every country in Africa in over 100 locations. The ‘before’ and ‘after’ photographs, some of which span a 35-year period, offer striking snapshots of local environmental transformation across the continent. It chronicles how development choices, population growth, climate change and, in some cases, conflicts are impacting the natural assets of the region.

Here are two views of the region around Bumba in the Nord-Ubangi and Mongala provinces of the DRC. The one on the right is from 1975. You can see the pattern of deforestation concentrated along the local roads as loops of light green through the otherwise dense rain forest. In the right-side image, taken in 2003, these deforested corridors have widened considerably, almost joining in many places.


Most of this deforestation is the result of agricultural conversion, fuelwood collection, settlement, and artisanal logging. Networks of logging roads can also be seen within two of the patches of largely intact forest in the lower right corner of the 2003 image. Full size high resolution images are available at UNEP Atlas of our Changing Environment.

The report says

While industrial logging has had a relatively small impact in the DRC in the past, it has recently become the most extensive form of land use in Central Africa. More than half of the area visible in these images is under logging concession. The selective logging practised by commercial logging companies has been shown to have long-lasting impacts on forest composition. Logging roads have been shown to significantly increase bushmeat hunting.

In addition to local and logging roads, a recent study for the World Bank suggests the road from Bangui, CAR, to Kisangani, DRC, be improved as part of a continental road network. The study shows that the network would increase trade on this route enormously. It also acknowledges concern that parts of the road network that would experience the greatest increase in trade correspond to areas with the highest biodiversity.

It’s also interesting to note that the relative peace in this part of the country has enabled the commercial development that’s causing this deforestation.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds

Tags: romantic thriller, Congo, blood diamonds

Another Scheme to Exploit Congo Resources

One of the scariest news items I saw about the Congo has nothing to do with civil war. It was a Reuters report about a UN economist touting the virtues of biofuel production in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other African countries. This sounds like a case of "we can, therefore we should" with some pretty dire potential consequences.

While it is certainly possible biofuel crops can be grown outside the rain forests, there is no guarantee that's where it would happen. And, while it is also certainly possible that abandoned arable land could be used to grow new crops, it is entirely more likely that the first biomass that's used will be the existing vegetation --rainforests-- because it is more economical to pluck the low-hanging fruit.

These aren't just theoretical musings, either. A Chinese company recently signed a billion-dollar contract to develop more than 3 millions hectares of the DRC from oil palm plantations. Those will supposedly not threaten the rainforest, but the Chinese don't exactly have a stellar record of good citizenship when it comes to economic development in the Third World.

Mostly, though, I question how turning the DRC's resources into a source of fuel for China, France, or the US will help the Congo any more than the exploitation of any other resource for major country consumption. Job creation? How much good have sugar and palm oil plantations done in that regard?

The economics of biofuels aren't necessarily positive for the Congo, although I'm sure they would be for the Chinese or whomever. Biomass becomes fuel only in expensive processing plants--sold to the Congo by whom and paid for with what?. They also require surface transportation to the end user (which uses energy, too). To make biofuels economically viable, raw feed stock costs have to be excruciatingly low--and that's the end of the stick the Congo would be holding. It's the same economic scenario as any other natural resource exploitation scheme in Africa's history.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds

Tags: romantic thriller, Congo, blood diamonds