Soco oil corporation planning to devastate Congo gorilla reserve

By John Vidal / The Guardian

The Virunga national park, home to rare mountain gorillas but targeted for oil exploration by a British company, could earn strife-torn DR Congo $400m (£263m) a year from tourism, hydropower and carbon credits, a WWF report published on Thursday concludes.

But if the Unesco world heritage site that straddles the equator is exploited for oil, as the Congolese government and exploration firm Soco International are hoping, it could lead to devastating pollution and permanent conflict in an already unstable region, says the conservation body.

Congo has allocated oil concessions over 85% of the Virunga park but Soco International is now the only company seeking to explore inside its boundaries. This year Unesco called for the cancellation of all Virunga oil permits.

Soco, whose board of 10 directors have wide experience with oil companies working in conflict areas including Exxon, Shell and Cairn, insist that their operations in Congo would be confined to an area in the park known as Block V, and would not affect the gorillas.

Soco chairman, Rui de Sousa, said: “Despite the views of WWF, Soco is extremely sensitive to the environmental significance of the Virunga national park. It is irrefutable that oil companies still have a central role in today’s global energy supply and a successful oil project has the potential to transform the economic and social wellbeing of a whole country.”

He added: “The park has sadly been in decline for many years officially falling below the standards required for a world heritage site. The potential for development just might be the catalyst that reverses this trend.”

However Raymond Lumbuenamo, country director for WWF-Democratic Republic of the Congo, based in Kinshassa, said that security in and around the park would deteriorate further if Soco went ahead with its exploration plans.

“The security situation is already bad. The UN is involved with fighting units and the M23 rebel force is inside the park. Oil would be a curse. It always increases conflict. It would attract human sabotage. The park might become like the Niger delta. Developing Virunga for oil will not make anything better.”

“The population there is already very dense, with over 350 people per sqkm. When you take part of the land (for oil) you put more pressure on the rest. Oil would not provide many jobs, people would flood in looking for work,” he said.

One fear is that the area is seismically active and another eruption of one of the volcanoes in the park could damage oil company infrastructure and lead to oil spills in the lakes. “Virunga’s rich natural resources are for the benefit of the Congolese people, not for foreign oil prospectors to drain away. Our country’s future depends on sustainable economic development,” said Lumbuenamo.

“For me, choosing the conservation option is the best option. We can always turn back. Once you have started drilling for oil there’s no turning back,” he said.

But Raymond accepted that while the gorillas were safe at present, the chances of the park generating its potential of $400m a year were remote. “It would be difficult to make the kind of money that the report talks of. Virunga used to be a very peaceful place and can be again. The security situation right now is bad. The UN is involved with fighting units. Its not as quiet as it used to be.”

Read more from The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/01/congo-mountain-gorillas-virunga-wwf

Capitalists amping up destruction of Congo rainforests for palm oil plantations

By Jeremy Hance / Mongabay

Industrial oil palm plantations are spreading from Malaysia and Indonesia to the Congo raising fears about deforestation and social conflict.

A new report by The Rainforest Foundation UK (RFUK), dramatically entitled The Seeds of Destruction, announces that new palm oil plantations in the Congo rainforest will soon increase fivefold to half a million hectares, an area nearly the size of Delaware. But conservationists warn that by ignoring the lessons of palm oil in Southeast Asia, this trend could be disastrous for the region’s forests, wildlife, and people.

“Governments of Congo Basin countries have handed out vast tracts of rainforest for the development of palm oil with apparently little or no attention to the likely impacts on the environment or on people dependent on the forest,” Simon Counsell, Executive Director of the Rainforest Foundation UK, said.

The palm tree used to produce palm oil originated in Africa, so production in the Congo Basin isn’t new. But industrial palm oil production involving massive plantations is a recent development for the region. The approach, modeled after operations in Southeast Asia, raises concerns among environmentalists who argue that palm oil has been a disaster for the forests of Malaysia and Indonesia. Indeed, scientific research has found that between 1990 and 2000, 86 percent of all deforestation in Malaysia was for palm oil.

The largest palm oil developer in the Congo Basin is currently Malaysian-owned Atama Plantations SARL, which is working to establish a 180,000-hectare (450,000-acre) plantation in the Republic of Congo. But the entire enterprise is masked by a complete lack of transparency, says the report.

“No publicly available maps of the concession are available, but evidence suggests that the forests designated for clearance mostly appear to be virgin rainforest that is habitat for numerous endangered species, including chimpanzees and gorillas. The area borders, and some of it may fall inside, a planned National Park and Ramsar site,” according to the RFUK report, which notes that logging has already begun on the concession.

The RFUK report further questions whether the plantation development is simply an excuse to log what it calls “primary forests with significant timber stocks.”

Another controversial concession, this time in Cameroon, has received considerable pushback from international NGOs as well as local groups. U.S.-based Herakles Farms is working to develop a 60,000 hectare palm oil plantation in forest bordering four protected areas, but the company’s reputation has been tarnished by local protests, as well as condemnation from international groups such as Greenpeace. Last year, 11 top tropical biologists sent an open letter to Herakles condemning the project.

But Herakles and other companies say they are bringing economic development to a notoriously poor part of the world.

The RFUK report notes that in many cases governments appear unwilling even to take advantage of the economic benefits of palm oil plantations, by overly-sweetening deals to foreign corporations.

“The contracts signed between governments and oil palm developers are being kept secret, reducing transparency and democratic accountability. Those contracts that have come to light show that governments have already signed away some of the potential economic benefits, by granting developers extremely generous tax breaks of 10 to 16 years and land for ‘free’ or at highly discounted rates,” the report reads.

In addition, the palm oil plantations are sparking local conflict with traditional landowners, much as they have done in Malaysia and Indonesia. Locals often have little input on the project and in some cases leases are extraordinarily long, for example Herakles Farms’ lease is 99 years.

“New large-scale oil palm developments are a major threat for communities, livelihoods and biodiversity in the Congo Basin,” Samuel Nguiffo, Director of the Center for Environment and Development (CED), Cameroon, said. “It is absolutely not the appropriate answer to the food security and job creation challenges the countries are facing. Supporting small-scale family agriculture is a better solution.”

Guarani communities working with NGOs to protect wildlife corridor

By Jeremy Hance / Mongabay

Last month, three Guarani communities, the local Argentine government of Misiones, and the UK-based NGO World Land Trust forged an agreement to create a nature reserve connecting three protected areas in the fractured, and almost extinct, Atlantic Forest. Dubbed the Emerald Green Corridor, the reserve protects 3,764 hectares (9,301 acres) in Argentina; although relatively small, the land connects three protected other protected areas creating a combined conservation area (41,000 hectares) around the size of Barbados in the greater Yaboti Biosphere Reserve. In Argentina only 1 percent of the historical Atlantic Forest survives.

“The agreement that has been reached is truly ground-breaking,” John Burton the head of World Land Trust (WLT) said in a press release, “and it’s been heralded as such by the government of Misiones. In my view, it is probably the most important land purchase the WLT will ever make, because of the innovations involved and the wealth of biodiversity it protects.”

Once stretching along South America’s Atlantic coast from northern Brazil to Argentina, the Atlantic Forest (also known as the Mata Atlantica) has been fragmented by centuries of logging, agriculture, and urbanization. Around 8 percent of the Atlantic Forest still survives, most of it in Brazil, and most of it fragmented and degraded.

“The rainforest of Misiones is the largest remaining fragment of the Atlantic Rainforest of South America. It is full of unique plants and important animal species—it is vital to preserve the best sample of this ecosystem,” noted Sir Ghillean Prance, an advisor to the project and scientific director of the Eden Project, in a press release.

The establishment of the Emerald Green Corridor, which was purchased from logging company Moconá Forestal, ends 16 years of the Guarani communities fighting for their traditional lands. The land will now be considered Traditional Indigenous Lands, while the indigenous community is currently working on a conservation management plan to protect the forest and its species.

Read more: http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0517-hance-emerald-green-corridor.html#ixzz1vKfBacfM
Birdsong Rings Out Once Again in Togo’s Sacred Forest of Titiyo

Birdsong Rings Out Once Again in Togo’s Sacred Forest of Titiyo

Editor’s note: “A new study in Science indicates that reforestation projects, which restore degraded or destroyed forests, are the most effective land-based method for carbon removal and biodiversity protection. Meanwhile, the authors found that afforestation, in which trees are added where they didn’t exist before, and bioenergy cropping, in which carbon-removing crops are planted to make biofuels, can have negative effects on wildlife, outweighing the benefits of carbon removal. The research highlights the importance of identifying the best places for reforestation projects, but the authors emphasize that reforestation is not a replacement for fossil-fuel reduction.”

Evidence suggests that allowing forests to regenerate of their own accord – a process known as “proforestation” – is a more effective, and perhaps more importantly, a more immediate way of sequestering carbon from the atmosphere than planting new forests. Coined by scientists William Moomaw and Susan Masino, the term basically means, in Moomaw’s words, “allow[ing] trees that are already planted, that are already growing, to continue growing to reach their full ecological potential, to store carbon, and develop a forest that has its full complement of environmental services.”

 


 

By Charles KOLOU / Mongabay

KARÈ, Togo — Under the hot sun of an April afternoon in northern Togo, we made our way by motorcycle across the impoverished prefecture of Kozah. It wasn’t a long journey, about 30 minutes, but threading between trucks and cars on National Highway No. 1, it was a treacherous one. When we arrived, we were greeted with a smile by “Dadja” Pékémassim Ali, the 57-year-old chief of the canton of Kouméa, where the village of Karè is located.

“We’re glad you’ve come to talk about this forest, whose restoration we’re delighted to see,” he told us. “Out of ignorance, and in a desire to satisfy our needs, our people set fire to the forest and cut down all the trees. And for years, we suffered from scarce rainfall, no timber, and even hotter temperatures. Our children no longer knew of the area’s birds and other animal species.”

Ali gave us his approval to climb Karè’s mountain and visit the sacred forest known as Titiyo forest. As we entered the forest, we were greeted by a cool breeze and the sound of birdsong.

Koudjabalo Ayouguele, the Kara regional representative for the NGO AJEDI, holds a sign pointing to the sacred forest of Titiyo in northern Togo. Image by Charles Kolou for Mongabay.
Koudjabalo Ayouguele, the Kara regional representative for the NGO AJEDI, holds a sign pointing to the sacred forest of Titiyo in northern Togo. Image by Charles Kolou for Mongabay.

Since the 1800s, the sacred forest of Titiyo has been the site of annual rituals that involve traditional dances and the celebration of various deities. People come from throughout the canton of Kouméa and the entire Kozah prefecture.

It’s also an area of biodiversity conservation. This ecosystem, vital for the Karè village community, has suffered severe degradation since 1992, in the wake of a political crisis in Togo. Pressure from a growing population led to its rapid destruction as trees were felled for charcoal, firewood and timber, reducing the forest to almost nothing.

“Ever since we destroyed this forest by cutting down the trees, and with bushfires, mainly for hunting, the rain stopped,” said Kossi Karani, a Karè villager. “And we suffer from that because it affects our agricultural yields. The animals had disappeared, as well as the birds. There was no more life in the forest.”

But today, this sacred forest persists and has even begun to recover, thanks to the determination of a son of Karè: Sylvain Tchoou Akati.

Akati said he remembers watching helplessly as Titiyo’s destruction began, when he was just 12 years old. The tragedy left such an indelible impression that it prompted him to start fighting to restore Togo’s forests.

“The destruction of our sacred forest of Titiyo is recent, it happened before my very eyes,” he told Mongabay. “It all started with a need for wood to put a roof on the village elementary school. The forest was gradually destroyed until 2005.”

Today, Akati is the executive director of an NGO based in the capital, Lomé, known as AJEDI, or Youth Action for Integral Development. Its mission is to support and coach local communities in sustainable development. Akati’s motivation for restoring his own village’s forest comes not just from his love of nature, but also from encouragement by his uncle, Anam, well known in Karè for his love of planting trees, notably teak and mango.

Although he left Karè in 1997 to pursue his secondary and university studies in Lomé, Akati never abandoned his love for Titiyo. He became an activist for the preservation of forest ecosystems and sustainable development, and founded AJEDI in 2008. A few years later, in 2015, he set about restoring his native village’s forest.

“I cannot allow Titiyo, this sacred forest, to disappear without me doing something about it, especially given climate change. So in 2015, I visited my father, who was still alive, to tell him of my intention to restore the forest that our grandfather was responsible for preserving,” he said.

Raising public awareness

But Akati said he knew he couldn’t do it alone. Through his NGO, he began rallying the members of his community.

“We organized a meeting in the public square, which was attended by people from the surrounding villages. I explained to them the environmental, cultural, economic and social importance of restoring our forest, which is part of our shared heritage,” Akati said.

“During the training, we were made aware of how restoring the forest can contribute to good rainfall and improve agricultural production,” Tchilalo Pitekelabou, a member of the project’s monitoring committee, told Mongabay. She was one of six people appointed to the committee by the community’s members after the meeting. “We were also made aware of how forest resources can make our lives easier. That’s why we became involved, both men and women, in the restoration of Titiyo.”

The awareness-raising campaign prompted the Karè villagers, especially its women, to commit to the restoration of the forest. “In the early years, we sometimes watered the seedlings in the dry season to ensure their growth,” Pitekelabou said.

People who owned land within the forest’s perimeter agreed to give up their plots for reforestation.

A helping hand from the government

In 2019, Akati presented his project to Togo’s Ministry of Environment and Forest Resources, receiving positive feedback.

“The forest had become highly degraded and consisted of just a few trees,” said Yawo Kansiwoe, the Kozah prefectural official responsible for water, forests and the environment. “The local population and authorities were desperate to find ways of restoring it. This is what caught the attention of the NGO, which held discussions with local officials to jointly determine how the forest could be restored. Sylvain Akati’s determination encouraged us to give our full support to the NGO in all its awareness-raising and reforestation activities.”

In 2019, the first year of reforestation, the environment ministry provided technical and financial support worth $5,702 to support the reforestation of around 3 hectares (7 acres), allowing the planting of 3,500 seedlings, including Khaya senegalensis, earleaf acacia (Acacia auriculiformis), melina (Gmelina arborea), African locust bean (Parkia biglobosa), baobab (Adansonia digitata), kapok (Ceiba pentandra) and neem (Azadirachta indica) trees.

“We chose these species because they are sacred. The baobab, kapok and African locust bean are sacred in this forest,” said Koudjabalo Ayouguele, AJEDI’s local representative for the Kara region, where Kozah prefecture is located. “But beyond that, we have also planted trees such as Khaya senegalensis, which will enable us to restore the forest quickly.”

After this first year, the rest of the reforestation work fell to Akati. But he was able to draw on the commitment of local authorities eager to see Titiyo restored.

Red-throated bee-eaters (Merops bulocki), Pehonko, Benin. Image by Yves Bas via iNaturalist (CC BY 4.0).
Red-throated bee-eaters (Merops bulocki), like these ones pictured in neighboring Benin, are among the species found in this part of Togo, thriving in forest patches like Titiyo. Image by Yves Bas via iNaturalist (CC BY 4.0).

New life makes the birds sing

“We are grateful to our son Tchoou, who had the idea of enlisting us to help restore this forest,” said Ali, the Kouméa canton chief who also serves as the primary guardian of the area’s traditions and customs. “In the beginning, there were a lot of us, but along the way some became demotivated because there was no money to be made straight away. But others like us, who understood the wider importance, remained determined. And we’ll never give up.

“Before, children didn’t know about the birds in this area, but with the restoration of the forest, we can show them all the types of birds here,” he added. “And we ourselves are happy, because the birds are singing in our ears again, something we haven’t experienced here for years with the disappearance of the forest.”

As well as birds, other animals have also found refuge in the Titiyo forest. “Thanks to this forest, a fresh breeze now blows through the village of Karè,” Akati said. “It’s like a microclimate. And there are monkeys, cane rats [Thryonomys swinderianus], reptiles like the boa [sic, boa constrictors are not native to Africa], the eastern green mamba [Dendroaspis angusticeps], vipers and snakes that have returned to the forest.”

On top of this, from a cultural perspective, the local people can now once more perform traditional rites with joy.

Kansiwoe, the prefectural official, said seeing the forest’s recovery is a source of great satisfaction: “We are delighted with the encouraging results of the restoration and recovery of this forest, which at its core is a sacred place, and preserves this sacred forest tradition.”

Now that the forest has begun to be restored, it’s time to consider how to maintain it.

“Protecting this forest remains a major challenge, and it is something we are working on,” Akati said. “For the time being, the watch committee is carrying out its mission well, which consists of monitoring the forest, making fire patrols, and continuing to raise awareness so we avoid bush fires and tree cutting. So far, thanks to their work, no bush fires have been recorded. We hope, thanks to their commitment and that of the population, to continue in this way.”

Beyond that, he pointed out a practice carried out by his grandparents, which could be a crucial asset.

“What we also want to do to help preserve the forest is to reinstate an old practice or law, which prohibited entering the forest in the rainy season and which everyone respected without question. This rule also prohibited entry into the sacred forest without authorization,” he said.

In search of support

To safeguard the Titiyo community forest, Akati also needs financial and technical support. He said establishing some income-generating activities linked to the forest should increase the chances of its preservation.

“Now, we need to find ways to preserve what we’ve achieved. We’re thinking of promoting beekeeping and market gardening, and building a multipurpose facility with a solar energy system. In the long term, in addition to beekeeping, we’re also thinking of developing nontimber forest products, given the species planted in the forest.”

With his commitment to restoring forest ecosystems, Akati is also looking for support to enable him to restore other sacred forests across Kozah prefecture. Now in his 40s, he’s already hard at work restoring the sacred forest of Landa, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Titiyo.

“It’s not just Titiyo that was threatened with extinction,” he said. “Our experience here can now help us restore all of Kozah’s sacred forests.”

Banner image: Red-throated bee-eaters (Merops bulocki), Pehonko, Benin. Image by Yves Bas via iNaturalist(CC BY 4.0).

Controversial Sri Lanka Wind Power Project Withdrawn

Controversial Sri Lanka Wind Power Project Withdrawn

Editor’s note: “In recent years, the Southeast Asian country of Vietnam experienced a boom in renewable energy investments driven by generous feed-in tariffs, under which the state committed to buying electricity for 20 years at above-market prices. However, the high tariffs increased losses for Vietnam’s state-owned power utility EVN, the only buyer of the generated electricity, and led to an increase in power prices for households and factories. Authorities have repeatedly tried to reduce the high tariffs. Now they are considering a retroactive review of the criteria set for accessing the feed-in tariffs.”

“It’s really hard to build wind farms in Arizona, and if you put this into place, it’s just pretty much wiping you out,” said Troy Rule, a professor of law at Arizona State University and a published expert on renewable energy systems. “It’s like you’re trying to kill Arizona’s wind farm industry.”

United States Congressional House Republicans are seeking to prevent the use of taxpayer dollars to incentivize what they describe as “green energy boondoggles” on agricultural lands, citing subsidies that could cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade.

They are expensive to build, just finding their footing on this side of the Atlantic, and have faced backlash from parties as varied as beachfront property owners and fishermen to coastal businesses and fossil fuel backers(most of the developers have fossil fuel ties).

The future of Humboldt County’s offshore wind industry appears increasingly uncertain following mass layoffs at RWE and Vineyard Offshore, the multinational energy companies leading efforts to develop commercial-scale floating wind farms on the North Coast. The job cuts come in response to widespread market uncertainty following President Donald Trump’s efforts to ban offshore wind development in the United States.

A critical permit for an offshore wind farm planned near the New Jersey Shore has been invalidated by an administrative appeals board.


 

By Malaka Rodrigo / Mongabay

COLOMBO — In a dramatic turn of events, Indian tycoon Gautam Adani’s Green Energy Limited (AGEL) has withdrawn from the second phase of a proposed wind power project in northern Sri Lanka. The project, which was planned to generate 250 MW through the installation of 52 wind turbines in Mannar in the island’s north, faced strong opposition since the beginning due to serious environmental implications and allegations of financial irregularities.

While renewable energy is a crucial need in the era of climate change, Sri Lankan environmentalists opposed the project, citing potential ecological damage to the sensitive Mannar region. Additionally, concerns arose over the way the contract was awarded, without a competitive bidding process.

The former government, led by President Ranil Wickremesinghe, had inked an agreement with AGEL, setting the power purchase price at $0.82 per unit for 20 years. This rate was significantly higher than rates typically offered by local companies. “This is an increase of about 70%, a scandalous deal that should be investigated,” said Rohan Pethiyagoda, a globally recognized taxonomist and former deputy chair of the IUCN’s Species Survival Commission.

Legal battles

Five lawsuits were filed against this project by local environmental organizations, including the Wildlife and Nature Protection Society, the Centre for Environmental Justice and the Environmental Foundation Ltd. In January, the newly elected government expressed its desire to cancel the initial agreement and to renegotiate its terms and conditions, citing the high electricity tariff. Environmentalists welcomed the decision, believing the project would be scrapped entirely. However, their relief was short-lived when AGEL clarified that the project itself was not canceled, only the tariff agreement.

Government spokesperson Nalinda Jayatissa later confirmed that the project would proceed after renegotiating a lower power purchase rate. However, two weeks later, AGEL announced its complete withdrawal from the project, a decision widely believed to be influenced by the government’s stance.

Wind energy potential 

Sri Lanka has been exploring wind energy potential for more than two decades, with the first large-scale wind farm in Mannar named Thambapavani commissioned in 2020. This facility, comprising 30 wind turbines, currently generates 100 MW of power. With an additional 20 turbines planned, the Mannar wind sector would have surpassed 100 towers.

The Adani Group had pledged an investment totaling $442 million, and already, $5 million has been spent in predevelopment activities. On Feb. 15, the Adani Group formally announced its decision to leave the project. In a statement, the group stated: “We would respectfully withdraw from the said project. As we bow out, we wish to reaffirm that we would always be available for the Sri Lankan government to have us undertake any development opportunity.”

Environmentalists argue that Mannar, a fragile peninsula connected to the mainland by a narrow land strip, cannot sustain such extensive development. “If built, this project would exceed the carrying capacity of the island,” Pethiyagoda noted.

Mannar is not only a growing tourism hub, known for its pristine beaches and archaeological sites, but also Sri Lanka’s most important bird migration corridor. As the last landmass along the Central Asian Flyway, the region hosts millions of migratory birds, including 20 globally threatened species, he added.

Sampath Seneviratne of the University of Colombo, who has conducted satellite tracking research on migratory birds, highlighted the global importance of Mannar. “Some birds that winter here have home ranges as far as the Arctic Circle,” he said. His research has shown how extensively these birds rely on the Mannar Peninsula.

Although mitigation measures such as bird monitoring radar have been proposed to reduce turbine collisions, power lines distributing electricity remain a significant threat, particularly to species like flamingos, a major attraction in Mannar. The power lines distributing electricity from the already established wind farm near the Vankalai Ramsar Wetland and are already proven to be a death trap for unsuspecting feathered kind.

Nature-based tourism

Given Mannar’s ecological significance, conservationists say the region has greater potential as a destination for ecotourism rather than large-scale industrial projects. “Mannar’s rich biodiversity and historical value make it ideal for nature-friendly tourism, which would also benefit the local community,” Pethiyagoda added.

With AGEL’s withdrawal, Sri Lanka now faces the challenge of balancing its renewable energy ambitions with environmental conservation. However, there are other sites in Sri Lanka having more wind power potential, and Sri Lankan environmentalists hope ecologically rich Mannar will be spared from unsustainable wind farms projects.

Photo by Dattatreya Patra on Unsplash