Stop the Destruction of the World's Second Largest Rainforest & Genocide of the Pygmy People
Thu Apr 12, 2007 at 07:34:54 PM PST
While the US MSM covers the World Bank's Wolfowitz's mistress scandal a far bigger story is ignored. The World Bank has enabled massive illegal logging of the planet's second largest tropical rainforest in the Congo. This logging threatens the existence of the Pygmy people who depend on the forest for sustenance. Moreover, it has severe environmental consequences for global warming, species diversity, and provides habitat for endangered primates - gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos.
The Congo rainforest of central Africa is a vast, lush expanse that is second only in size to the Amazon, and home to three of the four great apes - gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos - as well as millions of people.
But in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the forests are being threatened by a misguided plan to use the timber industry to help alleviate poverty. Instead of helping one of the poorest countries on Earth, it will lead to the destruction of the rainforest and even greater hardship for the people who live there.
"Greater hardship" is British understatement for genocide.
The greatest problem environmental problem the Pygmy seem to be facing is the loss of their traditional homeland, the tropical forests of Central Africa. In several countries such as Cameroon, Gabon, Central African Republic and the Republic of Congo this is due to deforestation and the desire of several governments in Central Africa to evict the Pygmy from their forest habitat in order to cash in on quick profits from the sale of tropical hardwood and the resettlement of farmers on the cleared land. In some cases as in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo this conflict is violent and the desire of a racist groups such as the Hutus of the Interahamwe to eliminate the Pygmy all together and take the resources of the forest as a military conquest, using the resources of the forest for military as well as economic means. Since the Pygmies rely on the forest for their physical as well as cultural survival, as these forest disappear, so do the Pygmy.
I have had the privilege of interviewing a conservationist Mr. Dominique Bikaba who currently lives and works with the Pygmy in the East of the Congo. In his own words he states "I am lucky to work with a community (pygmy) in which I was born and grew [up in]. I am not a pygmy but we grew [up] together and we had to share our infancy and everything." He states that the conflict over the forest in the DR Congo has led to the Pygmy being evicted from the tropical rainforest after it was proclaimed a National Park. After they were evicted they were forbidden to use the economic resources of the forest (i.e. wild game, wood etc) and forced to live on the margins of the park. This has helped destroy their culture, because their traditional ceremonies and lifestyle were linked to the forest, which was now severely restricted. Also according to his description the current civil war in the region between the Congolese Mai-Mia militias and the Rwandan backed rebels has affected the Pygmy in the form of massacres, military conscription and even cannibalism as rival forces fight for territory in the forest. He also described a severe depletion of the Pygmies main source of food Bush meat as a result of poaching.
The story of Wolfowitz's Muslim mistress made the front page of Kos, but not a peep was heard about a much more important scandal. Not a word. The World Banks' Congo dealings are the worst form of colonialist exploitation. The mistress story is trivial by comparison.
DRC's forests cover an area of 1.3 million square kilometres, more than twice the size of France. According to World Bank estimates, some 35 million people (nearly 70% of the national population) are resident within, or to some extent dependent on, the country's forests. Most are Bantu farmers, many of whom still practice traditional rotational farming or ‘forest gardening’; a smaller number are Mbuti, Twa, and other ‘Pygmy’ hunter-gatherers.
As of today, relatively little of the forest has been exploited industrially, although a few (mostly foreign) companies have had access to large areas for logging, such as the German group, Danzer, which has held logging concessions extending over 2.4 million hectares. In some areas, forest has been converted to farmlands, mostly for subsistence, and around major cities, collection of fuelwood has also led to loss of forest cover. However, compared to other parts of west and central Africa, deforestation rates have remained low. Under the guidance of the international community, this could be about to change.
In August 2002, a new Forest Code was adopted by the (unelected) Interim Government of DRC. The Code sets out the basic 'framework' for the DRC Government's forest policy, such as that the government continues to assert state ownership over all areas of forest. The development and adoption of the Code was supported financially by the World Bank, and was broadly modelled on the Forest Law that the Bank developed for Cameroon in 1994. Subsequently, both the Bank and UN FAO have also started projects to ‘zone’ DRC's forests, eventually parcelling the country´s entire forest area into areas for logging, conservation, and other uses.
The World Bank has taken some positive steps to reform the timber industry in DRC, for example, by pressing the Government to cancel certain existing logging contracts, and revoke 6 million hectares of concessions allocated illegally.
However, internal Bank documents obtained by the Rainforest Foundation reveal that the Bank’s ultimate intention is a massive expansion of the country's timber industry. A 60-100-fold increase of timber production to around 6-10 million cubic metres of timber per year is foreseen, with an area of some 60 million hectares (somewhat larger than the size of France) being put up for grabs. Bank documents refer to the "creation of a favourable climate for industrial logging".
The World Bank's efforts at reform have been ineffectual. The World Bank started an orgy of "land rape" that it has not stopped. Reported April 11, 2007:
Vast tracts of the world's second-largest rainforest have been obtained by a small group of European and American industrial logging companies in return for minimal taxes and gifts of salt, sugar and tools, a two-year investigation will disclose today.
More than 150 contracts covering an area of rainforest nearly the size of the United Kingdom have been signed with 20 companies in the Democratic Republic of Congo over the past three years. Many are believed to have been illegally allocated in 2002 by a transition government emerging from a decade of civil wars and are in defiance of a World Bank moratorium.
According to the report, the companies, mainly from Germany, Portugal, Belgium, Singapore and the US, are already stripping from the 21m hectares (52m acres) of forest, primarily to extract African teak, which sells for more than £500 a cubic metre and is widely used for flooring, furniture and doors in Britain.
According to the 100-page study, compiled by Greenpeace International working with Congolese ecological and human rights groups, if all the forests identified for logging are felled, it could "release" up to 34bn tonnes of carbon - nearly as much as Britain has emitted in 60 years.
To gain access to the forests for the next 25 years, the European companies have made agreements with village chiefs, offering bags of salt, machetes and bicycles, and in some cases promised to build rudimentary schools, the report states....The report criticises the World Bank for encouraging logging in Congo in the knowledge that corruption was rife. It refused to comment until the report has been published.
Yes, the World Bank has encouraged the most obscene forms of modern colonialism and environmental destruction.
Lamoko, 150 miles down the Maringa river, sits on the edge of a massive stretch of virgin rainforest in central Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). On February 8 2005, representatives of a major timber firm arrived to negotiate a contract with the traditional landowners.
Few in the village realised that the talks would transform all their lives, but in just a few hours, the chief, who had received no legal advice and did not realise that just one tree might be worth more than £4,000 in Europe, had signed away his community's rights in the forest for 25 years.
In return for his signed permission to log thousands of hectares for exotic woods such as Afromosia (African teak) and sapele, the company promised to build Lamoko and other communities in the area three simple village schools and pharmacies. In addition, the firm said it would give the chief 20 sacks of sugar, 200 bags of salt, some machetes and a few hoes. In all, it was estimated that the gifts would cost the company £10,000.
It was the kind of "social responsibility" agreement that is encouraged by the World Bank, but when the villagers found out that their forest had been "sold" so cheaply, they were furious.
They complained to the local and central government that there had been no proper consultation, that the negotiations had been conducted in an "arrogant" manner, and that people had been forced to sign the document. They demanded that the company pull out.
Since February 2005, logging roads have been driven deep into the forests near Lamoko and the company has started extracting and exporting trees, but the villages have yet to see their schools and pharmacies.
"We asked them to provide wood for our coffins and they even refused that," said one man who asked to remain anonymous.
Greenpeace UK is leading the fight against this horrible destruction enabled by the World Bank. Here's the UK link for taking action. We need to do something here too. Can you help me find an action link in the US?
Here's a link to US Greenpeace take action.
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