location: Gabon

location: Gabon

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Freeing trees of their liana load can boost carbon sequestration in tropical forests
- Lianas are woody, vining plants, many of which thrive in areas where forest has been disturbed — often to the detriment of the trees they use to climb towards the sun.
- New research shows that liana cutting is a low-cost natural climate solution that can boost the amount of carbon absorbed by a tree.
- The study’s results indicate that freeing just five trees per hectare of their liana load could remove 800 million tons of C02 from the atmosphere over a 30 year period if applied across 250 million hectares of managed forest.
- Liana cutting is also seen as a way for foresters and conservationists to work together, improving both the forest’s power to sequester carbon and the quality of the timber that is being logged, as well as a way to generate income for local communities.

What would it cost to protect the Congo Rainforest?
- The Congo Basin holds the world’s second-largest rainforest — the majority of which is in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) — playing a vital role in carbon storage and ecological services that millions of people and species rely upon.
- However, the DRC is a nation with the second-highest rate of tropical deforestation behind Brazil. Meanwhile, Gabon says it has acted to protect its forests but hasn’t reaped the promised rewards.
- International commitments to protect the Congo Rainforest are historically meager compared with what experts say is actually needed, and many of these commitments go unfulfilled.
- On this episode of Mongabay Explores the Congo Basin, we speak with experts about what’s needed to overcome hurdles to financing forest protection to benefit conservation, climate and communities: Paolo Cerutti, senior scientist and DRC unit head at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR-ICRAF); Chadrack Kafuti at Ghent University; Wahida Patwa Patwa-Shah, senior regional technical specialist, UNDP Climate Hub; and Lee White, minister of water, forests, the sea and environment in Gabon.

Do virus-detecting ants hold the key to preventing zoonotic diseases?
- Researchers are using army ants in Congo Basin rainforests to better understand the presence and emergence of zoonoses, diseases transmitted from animals to humans.
- According to the World Health Organization, the number of zoonotic epidemics recorded in Africa between 2012 and 2022 rose by 63% compared to the previous decade.
- Researchers collected 200 army ants from 29 colonies in Gabon’s rainforest for analysis. They found nearly 50,000 different viral sequences, half of them belonging to viruses currently unknown to science.
- They hope that by regularly collecting ants for analysis from selected sites, they will be able to identify potentially-dangerous viruses as well as which animal species harbour them, and use this information to guide public health strategy to control zoonotic diseases.

Forest campaign group renews charge that carbon credit verification schemes are flawed
- A new assessment conducted by Rainforest Foundation UK raises fresh concerns about the validity of carbon offsetting schemes.
- The campaign group claims that all the leading carbon credit verification schemes have allowed millions of credits to enter the voluntary carbon market which do not accurately represent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
- RFUK is calling for a shift in emphasis to measures like global carbon levies and debt relief for poor countries, which it says would address root causes of emissions.
- Verra and several REDD+ project managers told Mongabay RFUK’s analysis is ideologically motivated, insisting that while verifying credits is not perfect, it is producing genuine, positive results.

Forests & finance: communities turn to tree-planting, zero-logging, and mushrooms to protect forests
- Communities in Gabon and Kenya organise to protect forests against logging.
- Renewed forest restoration efforts by a local council in Cameroon’s East region.
- Mushroom profits may help protect Tanzania’s forests.

Corruption threatens timber traceability in Nkok, Gabon
- Gabon enjoys 88% forest cover, with selective logging helping protect this ecological and economic resource.
- Timber processed in the country’s Nkok Special Investment Zone (SIZ) is required to be harvested in line with European Union certifications for sustainability.
- However, TraCer, the monitoring system meant to ensure the traceability of wood entering the Nkok SIZ, was recently suspended by Gabon’s Ministry of Water and Forests.
- While TraCer was quickly reinstated, its suspension points to issues surrounding forest management and the Gabonese timber industry, including trafficking scandals involving the Ministry of Water and Forests.

Forests & Finance: Agroforestry in Cameroon and reforestation in South Africa
- An agroforestry initiative in a cocoa-growing community on Cameroon aims to prevent the expansion of cocoa farms into the nearby forest while also providing additional income to farmers.
- A community effort in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province is restoring the region’s mistbelt forest that’s home to the iconic Cape parrot, and since 2011 has planted 52,000 trees while allowing participants, mostly women, to earn a living.
- A program meant to ensure the legality of timber in Gabon’s supply chain was briefly suspended between March and April over what the government says was missing paperwork — a justification that proponents have called into question.
- Forests & Finance is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin of briefs about Africa’s forests.

CAPS, new gas megaproject, aims to power Central Africa, but at what cost, critics ask
- The Central Africa Business Energy Forum proposes to build 6,500 kilometers (4,000 miles) of pipelines linking oil and gas resources across 11 countries in Central Africa.
- The forum says gas in particular should play a key role in developing the region’s economy.
- Seven countries have so far signed a memorandum of understanding, and a feasibility study for a first phase is expected by the end of 2023
- Environmentalists say the project is a mistake that will exacerbate the climate crisis and fail to benefit local populations.

Libreville’s shrinking mangroves leave Gabon’s capital prone to floods
- Gabon’s capital, Libreville, has lost more than 3% of its mangroves in three years.
- Most of this loss is due to uncontrolled urbanization, with inhabitants of this fast-growing city clearing swaths of mangrove forest to build their homes.
- Conservationists and scientists warn this leaves the city increasingly vulnerable to floods and landslides.
- While the country has laws in place to protect mangroves, conservationists say poor enforcement and widespread corruption mean they’re largely toothless.

Tracking the moves of Asian forestry companies in Central Africa (analysis)
- An array of Asia-based forestry companies operate in Central Africa, including the countries of Cameroon, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.
- Many of these companies subcontract their operations to third parties, making their activities difficult to track.
- An analysis of these operations sheds light on the near to mid-term future of Central African forests as government policies shift along with markets.
- This post is an analysis by a senior scientist at the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD). The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

In Gabon, camera-trap developers find the ideal proving ground for their craft
- Rich in forests and biodiversity, the Central African country of Gabon has long proved a fruitful testing ground for camera-trap technology.
- Snapshots of species once thought extinct in the country, such as lions, have helped inform conservation policy, including the establishment of national parks and protection of vast swaths of forest.
- The wealth of data generated means there are large data sets from various projects that researchers just don’t have the resources or time to sift through — which is why Gabon has also become a testing ground for artificial intelligence tools to aid in that task.
- Key limitations remain the cost of camera traps and the fact that many forms of data capture and analysis simply can’t be done by camera traps or AI, and still require human involvement.

As animal seed dispersers go the way of the dodo, forest plants are at risk
- Many plants rely on animals to reproduce, regenerate and spread. But the current sixth mass extinction is wiping out seed-dispersing wildlife that fill this role, altering entire ecosystems.
- Thousands of species help keep flora alive, from birds and bats to elephants, apes and rodents.
- Animals give plants the ability to “move,” with the need for mobility rising alongside warming temperatures and more frequent extreme weather events. Transported elsewhere, plants may be able to “outrun” a warming climate.
- There are growing efforts to restore these critical ecological relationships and processes: protecting and recovering wild lands, identifying and rewilding key animal seed dispersers, reforesting destroyed habitat, and better regulating destructive logging and agricultural practices.

2021 tropical forest loss figures put zero-deforestation goal by 2030 out of reach
- The world lost a Cuba-sized area of tropical forest in 2021, putting it far off track from meeting the no-deforestation goal by 2030 that governments and companies committed to at last year’s COP26 climate summit.
- Deforestation rates remained persistently high in Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo, home to the world’s two biggest expanses of tropical forest, negating the decline in deforestation seen in places like Indonesia and Gabon.
- The diverging trends in the different countries show that “it’s the domestic politics of forests that often really make a key difference,” says leading forest governance expert Frances Seymour.
- The boreal forests of Eurasia and North America also experienced a spike in deforestation last year, driven mainly by massive fires in Russia, which could set off a feedback loop of more heating and more burning.

In Gabon, a community’s plea against logging paves the way for a new reserve
- Gabon’s environment minister has announced an immediate end to the logging of the Massaha ancestral forest in the country’s northeast, setting his administration a two-month deadline to finalize technical questions for permanent protection of the site.
- The move follows his visit to Massaha to gain a better understanding of the motives behind the community’s request to declassify the logging concession and grant it protected area status.
- Minister Lee White also ordered the Chinese company that holds the logging concession, Transport Bois Négoce International (TBNI), to “leave quickly” and “preserve the area.”
- This is a precedent-setting case in the country’s management of forests, representing the first time an area will be declared protected at the request of the resident community.

The chimp doctor will see you now: Medicating apes boost the case for conservation
- Researchers in Gabon’s Loango National Park observed chimps applying insects to their own wounds, as well as the wounds of other individuals.
- Researchers identified 76 instances of this behavior being repeated on 22 different chimps.
- Experts say these findings could help guide conservation efforts for not just these endangered great apes, but also their entire ecosystem.

Is a European proposal on imported deforestation too punitive? (commentary)
- One third of global deforestation is linked to international trade, and the European Union plus the UK are estimated to account for 16% of global trade-related deforestation.
- A recent European Commission proposal would require companies to ensure that commodities placed on the European market are not linked to a territory that has been deforested after December 31, 2020.
- A senior scientist at CIRAD argues that as worded, the proposal could punish some countries unfairly while ignoring other useful certification schemes that protect forests.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

DNA assessment confirms Gabon as last stronghold of forest elephants
- A new survey has found that there are more than 95,000 critically endangered forest elephants in Gabon, which is considered to be the last remaining stronghold for the species.
- The researchers came to this estimate after collecting elephant dung samples across Gabon and analyzing each sample’s genetic material.
- The survey found that forest elephants were present in about 90% of the country, in both protected and nonprotected areas.
- Forest elephants have been heavily poached in Gabon in the last couple of decades, with 25,000 killed in Gabon’s Minkébé National Park alone between 2004 and 2014.

Mixed signals from Gabon officials to villagers fighting to save a forest
- One year on from their request to reclassify part of a logging concession as a protected forest, the rural community of Massaha in northeast Gabon is still awaiting a response.
- Meanwhile, Transport Bois Négoce International (TBNI), which holds the logging concession in question, began logging it in June.
- Conflicting statements from officials in the ministry responsible for reviewing the reclassification have cast doubts on the environmental compliance of the logging operations, as well as on the consistency of national forest policy.

Fomenting a “Perfect Storm” to push companies to change: Q&A with Glenn Hurowitz
- Over the past few years, Mighty Earth has emerged as one of the most influential advocacy groups when it comes pushing companies to clean up their supply chains. The group, has targeted companies that produce, trade, and source deforestation-risk commodities like beef, palm oil, cocoa, rubber, and soy.
- Mighty Earth is led by Glenn Hurowitz, an activist who has spent the better part of the past 20 years advocating for forests and forest-dependent communities. In that capacity, Hurowitz has played a central role in pressing some of the world’s largest companies to adopt zero deforestation, peatlands, and exploitation (ZDPE) commitments.
- Mighty Earth’s strategy is built on what Hurowitz calls the “Perfect Storm” approach: “We work to bring pressure on a target from multiple different angles in a relatively compressed time period to the point that it becomes irresistible: their customers, financiers, media, grassroots, digital, direct engagement with the company,” he explained. “It’s an application of the basic principles of classical military strategy, combined with social change theory and a lot of hard-won experience to the field of environmental campaigning.
- Hurowitz spoke about how to drive change, the evolution of environmental activism, and a range of other topics during an August 2021 conversation with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler.

Podcast: ‘Stubborn optimism’ for elephants fuels Indigenous conservation effort
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we take a look at an Indigenous-led elephant sanctuary in Kenya and the latest research informing conservation of forest elephants in Gabon.
- Our first guest is National Geographic photographer and documentary filmmaker Ami Vitale, whose new short film ‘Shaba’ tells the story of an orphaned elephant in Kenya and the Indigenous Samburu people who have rescued dozens of elephants at the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary.
- We also speak with Duke University professor John Poulsen, who tells us about recent research into forest elephants’ role as ecosystem engineers, another study that tracked the movements of nearly 100 elephants in Gabon, and how the findings of these studies can inform conservation measures for the critically endangered species.

Gabon becomes first African country to get paid for protecting its forests
- Gabon recently received the first $17 million of a pledged $150 million from Norway for results-based emission reduction payments as part of the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI).
- Gabon has 88% forest cover and has limited annual deforestation to less than 0.1% over the last 30 years, in large part possible due to oil revenues supporting the economy.
- With oil reserves running low, Gabon is looking to diversify and develop its economy without sacrificing its forests by building a sustainable forest economy supported by schemes such as CAFI.

In Gabon, a new partnership protects sharks and rays
- The diversity of habitat in Gabon’s waters creates a perfect home for a wide range of shark and ray species: from whale sharks to giant manta rays, scalloped hammerheads, and guitarfish.
- A partnership between the government and conservation NGO Wildlife Conservation Society highlights a new global initiative to save the world’s sharks and rays, launched this World Ocean Day.
- The first new law fully regulates shark and ray catches and special authorization will now be needed to target sharks and rays, and a second adds a wide range of sharks and rays to Gabon’s list of fully protected marine species.
- This article is an analysis. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Logging company moves into intact Gabon forest as village fights to save it
- Transport Bois Négoce International (TBNI), a Chinese forestry company, has built new roads in preparation to cut timber in a concession which includes a previously unlogged forest in northeastern Gabon.
- Residents of the village of Massaha, on the northern edge of this forest, have been managing hunting and other use of this forest since 2019; they formally requested reclassification of the forest as a protected area in August 2020.
- Gabon’s forest code makes explicit provision for local communities to initiate reclassification of sensitive forest as a protected area, and villagers are anxious for the government to respond before TBNI advances any further.

With a drastic decline in tropical fruit, Gabon’s rainforest mega-gardeners go hungry
- Climate change appears to be disrupting the yield of fruit trees, a critical food source for many large mammals in Central Africa.
- A new study warns that endangered forest elephants and other keystone species in Lopé National Park in central Gabon — such as western lowland gorillas, chimpanzees, and mandrills — could be facing famine.
- “The changes are drastic,” says Emma Bush, co-lead author of the study. “The massive collapse in fruiting may be due to missing the environmental cue to bear fruit.”
- Some tropical trees depend on a drop in temperature to trigger flowering, but since the 1980s, the region recorded less rainfall and a temperature increase of 1°C.

Just half of major timber and pulp suppliers committed to zero deforestation: Report
- The world’s 100 most significant timber and pulp companies score just 22.6%, on average, when assessed across 175 environmental, social, and governance indicators, according to the latest assessment by the Zoological Society of London using its Sustainability Policy Transparency Toolkit (SPOTT).
- 2020 is the first way-point towards the 2014 New York Declaration on Forests’ goal of eliminating natural forest loss by 2030, but 44% of companies still don’t have a robust commitment to halting the conversion of natural ecosystems.
- Climate change risk assessments, which are not a requirement of current forest management certification programs, are often viewed by companies as an “optional extra,” and only 4% of firms provided an assessment of their future climate risk.
- More than half of companies are committed to respecting the rights of local communities, but only 9% have published procedures for obtaining free, prior informed consent from local communities on all new developments. Just 11 firms provided evidence they’re paying all workers minimum wage.

Probe begins into alleged deforestation by Olam, ‘world’s largest farmer’
- A retrospective assessment has begun of claims that FSC-certified palm oil producer Olam razed thousands of hectares of wildlife-rich rainforest in Gabon.
- Campaigners are calling for Olam to fund compensatory forest restoration or additional protection.
- The Gabonese government says its palm oil strategy is sustainable and does not threaten the country’s rich biodiversity.

Palm oil giant Olam under scrutiny again over Gabon plantations
- The World Rainforest Movement says Olam’s oil palm operations in Gabon do not meet voluntary zero-deforestation pledges and fail local communities.
- Olam says its plantations are fully sustainable and have been developed in full cooperation with local people.
- The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is set to investigate the sustainability of the plantations this year following a separate complaint lodged in 2016.

Eco-tourism isn’t enough to develop a country: Q&A with Gabon’s environment minister, Lee White
- There are limits to the potential of ecotourism to meet development needs, says Gabon’s environment minister.
- Beneficiation of timber and controlled, selective logging means fewer trees can be cut while the people of Gabon benefit from higher earnings and more sustainable jobs.
- FSC certification and tighter controls at Gabon’s port, along with stiffer minimum sentences for corruption and audits of logging companies will curb illegal operations.

Debate rages over intensive oil palm farming in Gabon
- Nearly 88 percent of Gabon is covered in forests, but NGOs fear that the development of oil palm plantations threatens this viable resource.
- Local communities accuse SOTRADER, a public-private partnership between the government and the multinational Olam, of land grabbing.
- Its defenders say that the project respects the environment and community social commitments.
- In September, the government of Gabon signed an agreement allowing the sustainable management of its high carbon stock forests.

Gabon could earn up to $150 million for forest conservation
- Home to 12 percent of the Congo Basin’s forests, the African nation has an established conservation and sustainable management practices track record.
- Since the early 2000s, Gabon has worked to create 13 national parks, while improving performance on timber resource management outside of the parks.
- Gabon’s rainforest has been largely preserved by these and other measures, a key reason why the Central African Rainforest Initiative is brokering a 10-year, $150 million agreement for results-based payments.

Industrial palm oil investors struggle to gain foothold in Africa
- Twenty-seven concessions intended for industrial oil palm plantations in West and Central Africa have either failed or been abandoned in the last decade.
- Of the 49 that remain, less than 20 percent of the allocated land has been developed.
- Malaysian palm oil giant Sime Darby recently announced its intention to withdraw from Liberia after years of conflict with communities and environmental groups.

Gabonese timber linked to illegal logging seized in Antwerp
- Belgian authorities have blocked a shipment of tropical timber from Gabon after a tip-off by Greenpeace.
- Under the EU Timber Regulation, European companies have an obligation to conduct proper due diligence on the source of the timber they import.
- Greenpeace says this due diligence requirement was not met in this case, as the wood was exported by a Chinese logging firm with previous allegations of illegal logging.

Documentary seeks to tip the scales against illegal pangolin trafficking
- New film aims to raise awareness and strengthen protection and conservation of pangolins.
- Hunting and trafficking of these animals in Africa has sharply intensified to meet demand from Asia in recent years.
- Pangolins have historically been used for traditional medicine, decoration and gift-giving across Africa.

In a first, chimps found bashing tortoises against trees to get at the meat
- For the first time, researchers have observed chimpanzees in Gabon vigorously smashing forest hinge-back tortoises against tree trunks to try and crack open their shells and extract meat out of them.
- It was usually adult male chimps that were successful at cracking open tortoise shells. One female and two adolescents were seen trying too, but they were unsuccessful, following which an adult male finished the job, sharing the meat with them.
- In an unexpected observation, a adult male chimp cracked open a tortoise, ate half of its meat, then stored the remainder in a tree fork. He came back for it the next day, suggesting that chimpanzees plan for the future.

Norway divests from plantation companies linked to deforestation
- This week, Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global – the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund – released its 2018 holdings.
- Thirty companies were divested from on the basis that they “impose substantial costs on other companies and society as a whole and so are not long-term sustainable.” These “risk-based divestments” appear to include four plantation companies: Olam International, Halcyon Agri Corp, Sime Darby Plantation and Sipef.
- These companies are involved in the production of commodity crops in tropical areas in Southeast Asia, West Africa, and Oceania and have been criticized for destructive land use practices like deforestation.

Top camera trapping stories of 2018
- Camera traps, remotely installed cameras triggered by motion or heat of a passing person or animal, have helped research projects document the occurrence of species, photograph cryptic and nocturnal animals, or describe a vertebrate community in a given area.
- Camera trapping studies are addressing new research and management questions, including document rare events, assess population dynamics, detect poachers, and involve rural landowners in monitoring.
- And with projects generating ever-larger image data sets, they are using volunteers and, more recently, artificial intelligence to analyse the information.

Congo Basin rainforest may be gone by 2100, study finds
- Satellite data indicate the Congo Basin lost an area of forest larger than Bangladesh between 2000 and 2014.
- Researchers found that small-scale farming was the biggest driver, contributing to around 84 percent of deforestation.
- This kind of farming is primarily done for subsistence by families that have no other livelihood options.
- The study finds that at current trends, all primary rainforest in the Congo Basin could be cleared by the end of the century.

The legal institutionalization of FSC certification in Gabon (commentary)
- Gabon’s President Ali Bongo announced on September 26, during a visit to a Rougier wood processing plant, that all forest concessions in Gabon will have to be certified with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standard by 2022.
- Unlike its neighbors, Gabon has never shown any interest in the European proposal for a Voluntary Partnership Agreement, probably because its timber exports are increasingly focused on Asia. If other countries follow Gabon’s lead and make private certification mandatory (the Congo-Brazzaville is considering this in its forestry law under preparation), the European strategy, which gives only a secondary place to private certification, will probably have to be reviewed.
- The future will tell us whether the Gabonese decision is the first step in consecrating the power of private governance in an area that has long remained particularly sovereign, or whether the conversion of a voluntary instrument into a legal prerequisite is turning against the FSC by undermining its credibility.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Camera trap captures spotted hyena in Gabon national park, the first in 20 years
- The spotted hyena was thought to be extinct in Gabon’s Batéké Plateau National Park for 20 years as a result of wildlife poaching.
- But the camera trap image captured has given conservation groups hope that protection of the park is working and allowing wildlife to return.
- Camera traps have also recently snagged images of a lion, a serval and chimpanzees.

Citizen scientists around the world are monitoring elephants in Gabon via camera traps — and you can too
- Camera traps have proven to be a powerful tool in conservationists’ arsenal for monitoring forests and wildlife. But the mountains of data they capture need to be sifted through in order to be useful, which often presents a significant challenge for cash-strapped conservationists and researchers.
- To meet this challenge, a team led by Anabelle Cardoso, a PhD candidate at Oxford University in the UK, has turned to another promising new method that is reshaping the way research is done in modern times: citizen science.
- Slow population growth and the ivory poaching crisis have driven down the numbers of African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) in recent years. “We want to conserve these beautiful creatures, but to do that effectively we need to know where these elephants are and how many of them there are, so we can pick the best places to focus our efforts,” Cardoso and her colleagues write.

Big forests, big ag: Are rainforests the right place for industrial agriculture? (commentary)
- Gabon remains a relative stronghold for endangered wildlife like chimpanzees and forest elephants.
- Singapore-based Olam International, one of the world’s largest agribusinesses, has agreed not to plant palm oil in protected wetlands, and also set aside conservation areas and corridors for wildlife in its concessions in Gabon.
- But there is only so much that can be done to minimize the impact of clearing 26,000 hectares in the middle of one of the world’s most forested countries.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Gabon pledges ‘massive’ protected network for oceans
- The network of marine protected areas covers some 53,000 square kilometers (20,463 square miles) of ocean, an area larger than Costa Rica.
- The marine parks and reserves could also draw tourists eager to catch a glimpse of the humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae), olive ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) and leatherback sea turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) that all shuttle through Gabonese waters.
- Government officials are in the process of overhauling how they manage fisheries, and they hope the move to protect Gabon’s territorial waters will improve the country’s food security and give its citizens a better chance to earn a living from fishing.

More than 25,000 elephants were killed in a Gabon national park in one decade
- A decline of somewhere between 78 and 81 percent in the park’s forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) population over the span of just one decade was largely driven by poachers who crossed the border into Gabon from its neighbor to the north, Cameroon, according to a new study led by researchers with Duke University and published in the journal Current Biology this week.
- The fact that Cameroon’s national road is so close to the park makes it relatively easy for poachers to slip into the park, make their illegal kills, and then transport elephant tusks back to Cameroon’s largest city, Douala, which has become a major hub of the international ivory trade.
- Nearly half of Central Africa’s estimated 100,000 forest elephants are thought to live in Gabon, making the loss of 25,000 elephants from a key sanctuary a considerable setback for the preservation of the species, according to John Poulsen, assistant professor of tropical ecology at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment and the lead author of the study.

Logging in certified concessions drove intact forest landscape loss in Congo Basin
- A study published in the journal Science Advances this month found that, between 2000 and 2013, the global area of intact forest landscape declined by 7.2 percent.
- Certification of logging concessions, which aims to ensure sustainable forest management practices, had a “negligible” impact on slowing the fragmentation of intact forest landscapes (IFLs) in the Congo Basin, according to the study.
- According to Corey Brinkema, president of the Forest Stewardship Council US, the findings of the study may be noteworthy, but they don’t apply to how FSC operates today.

The year in tropical rainforests: 2016
- After 2015’s radical advancements in transparency around tropical forests between improved forest cover monitoring systems and corporate policies on commodity sourcing, progress slowed in 2016 with no major updates on tropical forest cover, resistance from several governments in releasing forest data, and some notable backtracking on zero deforestation commitments.
- But even without the pan-tropical updates, we know that deforestation increased sharply in the Brazilian Amazon, which accounts for the world’s largest area of tropical forest.
- Low commodity prices may have bought some relief for forests.

Palm oil giant defends its deforestation in Gabon, points to country’s ‘right to develop’
- Singapore-headquartered Olam International is the subject of a new report by NGOs Mighty and Brainforest that alleges forest destruction by the company in Gabon.
- Olam counters that it is only expanding into Gabon’s least valuable forested lands and that the clearance is necessary for Gabon to pull itself out of poverty.
- The debate raises questions about what it means for a country to develop sustainably, and whether deforestation should be seen as a means to that end.
- Olam has also released a list of its palm oil suppliers in response to the NGOs’ allegations that the firm is a “black box” that buys and sells palm oil linked to deforestation and human rights abuses.

Hunting stymies rainforest regrowth, says a new study
- The study compared sites with different degrees of hunting pressure, ranging from a national park to timber concessions.
- Areas with fewer large mammals tended to have more rodents, which in turn ate and destroyed more seeds of tree species valuable to the timber industry.
- The findings suggest that regulating hunting on timber concessions may help to encourage the regeneration of economically valuable trees.

Forest conservation can offset emissions from palm oil expansion in Africa: Study
- The Conservation Letters paper summarizes the results of a case study focused on an oil palm operation in Gabon.
- “Clearing just 11,500 hectares of forest — or roughly 28,400 acres — would release about 1.5 million metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere,” John R. Poulsen of Duke University, an author of the study, said. “That’s equivalent to the annual emissions of some small developing countries.”
- Poulsen and his colleagues found that the emissions from the plantation, jointly developed by the Gabonese government and agribusiness firm Olam International, could be completely offset within 25 years if oil palm development is centered on forests with lower carbon stocks and if every development set aside a portion of forest for conservation.

Gabon moves to share forestry profits with local forest communities
- Since it was made law in 2001, the Gabonese Forest Code has required companies to share the revenues from timber harvesting with the local communities in which they are operating. But the Forest Code itself did not specify how exactly that should happen in practice.
- An implementing decree published 13 years later proposed a benefit sharing agreement template, but the two texts still did not provide enough detail to make benefit sharing actually become a reality.
- Then, in 2014, the Ministry of Forests requested a guidance document for the implementing decree. Multiple stakeholders from local forest communities responded with the Technical Guide on Benefit Sharing, developed with input from a legal working group supported by ClientEarth, a legal non-profit based in London.

Protections for Africa’s rainforests aren’t working for people or wildlife: report
- Rainforest Foundation UK researchers examined 34 protected areas across the Congo Basin, from Cameroon and the Central African Republic to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon and the Republic of Congo.
- Of the 34 protected areas the RFUK team studied, 26 have displaced local people and 21 have seen conflicts between park managers and local communities. Meanwhile, wildlife poaching continues to increase.
- RFUK also released a short film about forest communities affected by the Tumba Lediima Reserve in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Major legal system breakdowns threaten great apes of Africa, Asia
- A comparison of the legal systems in Asian and African developing nations finds similar regulatory defects putting great apes greatly at risk in the face of rapid agribusiness development.
- Gabon, Liberia, Indonesia and Myanmar, for example, have all created conserved areas — protections deeply flawed by a lack of institutional capacity, inadequate funding, and poor enforcement.
- These nations, like other developing countries, suffer from a top-down concentration of political and legal power with centralized urban elites far from the backcountry where environmental and societal harm unfolds.
- The conservation laws of developing nations do not well address the leading cause of great ape decline: an explosion in habitat loss — the chief result of industrial agricultural expansion.

Oil palm company takes lead on sustainable agriculture in Gabon
- To meet global demand for palm oil, companies are rapidly shifting their focus from Southeast Asia to Africa, where conservationists and some companies are working together to avoid mistakes made in Indonesia and Malaysia. One such company is Olam-Gabon, which is teaming up with researchers to site new plantations to minimize biodiversity impacts.
- Some companies are increasingly using Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil standards (RSPO), developed in collaboration with conservation groups, to allow a nuanced approach to site selection that looks at ecosystems, biodiversity, key species, landscapes, carbon sequestration and human use.
- The challenge is finding a balance that allows for new palm oil plantation creation, providing economic growth for developing companies, along with jobs, while maximizing safeguards to protect forests and biodiversity.

Shocking discovery in Gabon: a new electric fish
- The discovery of a new species of mormyrid, a “weakly electric” fish endemic to the continental freshwaters of Africa, has led to the creation of a new genus containing not one but two new species.
- The new find shed light on two mis-classified specimens found years earlier.
- This is the first new genus discovered in nearly 30 years.

Norway pledges $47M/yr to help Congo countries save forests
- Norway and several other countries and multilaterals have created the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI).
- CAFI will function as a trust fund to support efforts to reduce deforestation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Gabon, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, the Central African Republic and the Republic of Congo.
- Deforestation is currently on the rise in the region.

Using DNA evidence to pinpoint poaching zones
- Most of the ivory being trafficked today comes from two areas in Africa.
- Researchers compared DNA from confiscated tusks to a reference database from elephant skin, dung, and hair collected across Africa.
- DNA data also show that poached ivory is shipped out of Africa from countries other than where the elephants were killed

King of the jungle returns to Gabon after nearly 20 year absence

Male lion in Kruger National Park, South Africa. Most of the world’s lions are now found in southern and eastern Africa. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. There’s a new cat in town. For the first time since 1996, conservationists have proof of a lion roaming the wilds of the Central African country of Gabon. The […]
UN report warns of grave consequences if mangroves not protected

Mangrove forest in Masoala National Park, Madagascar. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Protecting Mangrove Forests Good For Environment And Economy: UN Global destruction of mangrove forests impacts biodiversity, food security, and the lives and livelihoods of some of the most marginalized communities in the world, according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). Mangroves, which […]
Rainforest loss increased in the 2000s, concludes new analysis

Click charts to enlarge Loss of tropical forests accelerated roughly 60 percent during the 2000s, argues a paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The findings contradict previous research suggesting that deforestation slowed since the 1990s. The study is based on a map of 1990 forest cover developed last year by Do-Hyung Kim and […]
Selective logging causes long-term changes to forest structure

Logging in Gabon. Photos by Rhett A. Butler Selective logging is causing long-term changes to tropical forests in Africa by facilitating the growth of weeds and vines, which reduces plant diversity and diminishes carbon storage, reports a new paper published in the journal Ecological Research. The paper, led by Roberto Cazzolla Gatti of the University […]
Gabon protects 23% of its coastal waters

A pair of bottlenose dolphins frolic in the waters of Mayumba National Park, previously Gabon’s only national park dedicated to the protection of marine species. Photo credit: Peadar Brehony / WCS Gabon has once again made headlines for a bold conservation initiative. On Wednesday in Sydney, Australia, at the opening of the once-a-decade IUCN World […]

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