Brian wore khakis and a button down shirt. His shirt sleeves were rolled up with the top two buttons remaining unbuttoned, revealing tufts of chest hair. A set of golf clubs sat in the corner and a filled swimming pool could be seen beyond the sliding glass doors. “Wildlife has to pay its own way,” he exclaimed while seated in the spacious house that served as both the residence and working space for the employees of his international mining concern. Brian is a miner by trade, but a conservationist at heart. His firm was in the exploration phase of operations in Gabon, a francophone country in equatorial Africa. While Gabon has a land mass comparable to that of Oregon, with only approximately 1.5 million inhabitants nationwide and a tropical climate, it enjoys the distinction of being one of the most heavily forested countries on the planet. As was the fate for many countries around the world, the discovery of oil in Gabon shortly before independence in 1960 served as both a blessing and a curse. Due to the political aptitude of its long-serving president, Omar Bongo, Gabon has managed to sidestep the violent struggles for control of oil revenues that have plagued so many other African states in its position. However, the economy’s focus on petroleum has crowded out most other domestic industries. The extraction of materials – such as timber, minerals and precious metals – by mostly foreign companies is all that remains. Fortunately, President Bongo, in concert with conservationist such as the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), had the insight in 2002 to set aside 11% of his country for a system of national parks. Lacking critical investment in infrastructure and development on the part of the national government, however, this impressive system of parks has yet to become self-sustaining. It has, in effect, failed to pay its own way.
Gabon is located in a rough neighborhood. With the Republic of Congo to the east and south, and Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon to the north, its western border with the Atlantic Ocean is the country’s only consistently peaceful frontier. In a region that is often enthralled in civil war, it comes as no surprise that comparatively stable Gabon has one of the most developed environmental codes in Central Africa. However, as the World Bank asserts, it is the enforcement of these laws that has proven to be Gabon’s biggest weakness. Nowhere is this weakness more apparent than with the country’s relationship with the Chinese. In the emerging superpower’s relentless pursuit to acquire the raw materials to feed its impressive growth, University of Pennsylvania professor John Ghazvinian notes that “the scale and ferocity of China’s entry into Africa has been breathtaking.” With its large, albeit waning, petroleum reserves and high quality timber, the Chinese have taken special note of Gabon. So much so, in fact, that President Hu of China paid President Bongo a personal visit in 2004. The close relationship between the two men has recently resulted in two large and controversial extraction projects in the country: the Sinopec oil concession in Loango National Park and the more recent Belinga mine and accompanying hydroelectric dam currently underway in Ivindo National Park.
The Chinese presence in Gabon is sore subject for many here in the country. There is the impression that the Chinese operate here with impunity. They take what they want, when they want it, without regard to the needs and interests of the local population. These are views expressed by locals and expatriates alike. This subject was even highlighted in an editorial cartoon in a recent issue of the country’s only national daily newspaper, L’Union. Everyone from the World Bank to the private sector to the average Joe (or perhaps Jacques) on the street sees a neo-imperialist agenda on the horizon. Interestingly, however, the conservationists operating in the country seem to be singing a different tune.
Back in 2004, the Chinese state-owned oil exploration company, Sinopec, was granted a license to drill for oil in Loango National Park. This license was the direct result of meeting between Presidents Hu and Bongo, and was therefore fast-tracked to approval without many of the environmental safeguards laid forth in Gabonese law. The firm was essentially given free reign to explore for oil in whatever fashion they chose. Unlike the large, western energy companies that operate in the region, as a state-owned entity, Sinopec was not constrained by notions of shareholder interests and corporate social responsibility. And without the enforcement of restraints encoded in Gabonese law, it was in Sinopec’s best interests to explore for oil in the fastest and cheapest way it knew how. I spoke with a researcher with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in downtown Libreville. Choosing a surprisingly dispassionate tone, he maintained that the Sinopec episode was not the fault of the Chinese, for they “simply weren’t informed by the government.”Given this failure of communication, the firm unsurprisingly employed dynamite and other methods that, while effective, have proven to have deleterious effects on the surrounding environment. These practices resulted in an outcry from the media and the international community. When the government’s promises to shield the firm from international pressure proved ineffectual, it was the management of Sinopec itself that initiated meetings with the Ministry of the Environment and conservationists to develop a course of action that would be in keeping with the established environmental standards of the country. The Chinese made such an abrupt about-face in terms of environmental controls that, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society, “within a couple of months, Sinopec was outperforming even [the multinational oil companies] Total and Shell.”
The question of enforcement is the common theme that links all discussion of the environment in Gabon. The foundation has been laid. A sound body of laws is already on the books. In theory, Gabon may have one of the most protected environments in all of Africa. In practice, however, its regulations are only adhered to when convenient. Even if there existed the will to carry out all aspects of the law, Gabon may still fall short. Decades of graft and mismanagement at all levels of government have resulted in a lack of investment in education, infrastructure and technology that permeates every aspect of the society. It’s not surprising that a country that is flush with petrodollars but yet still has inadequate roads in much of its capital city has also failed to develop the human capital necessary to regulate the increasingly technical operations of multi-national corporations doing business within its borders. But even in that regard, Gabon may still be performing better than its neighbors. Gabon’s chief concern as it relates to enforcement is a culture of awarding valuable concessions for the good of the few at the expense of the many. President Bongo was seen as a visionary when he first established the system of national parks, but has subsequently been charged with shortsightedness by allowing the sustainability of that system to be undermined by short-term economic and political interests. It appears that Gabon is on track to relive the Sinopec experience, but this time in a park of a different name.
A Chinese company is on the verge of opening a large iron ore mine in Ivindo National Park in northeastern Gabon. In order to provide the mine with power, the firm also intends to build a hydroelectric dam on Kongou Falls, which are touted as Central Africa’s “most beautiful waterfall.” Like Sinopec, Belinga is a personal project of President Bongo, who promised his Chinese counterpart that the mine would be operational before Bongo faces re-election in 2012, a timeline that he announced during his recent trip to Beijing. Much like the Sinopec project, Belinga has resulted in condemnation from the Gabonese citizenry and the international community directed toward the Chinese. There are claims that the Chinese have not performed an environmental impact study that meets the standards for operation in a national park. Furthermore, there are serious misgivings surrounding the proposed location of the hydroelectric dam. The Ministry of the Environment and conservationists have made it clear that they are not necessarily opposed to the building of the mine and the hydroelectric project, but are pushing for a more detailed environmental impact study and a potentially less-destructive site for the dam. At this point it is still unclear how the situation will unfold.
While the Belinga episodes slowly plays out, contempt for the Chinese here in Gabon continues to grow. The conservationists, however, argue that while the Chinese are not without fault, the ultimate responsibility for what has taken place here lies with the government’s failure to uphold its own standards and turning a blind eye to their destructive practices. Nevertheless, perception often becomes reality. The general perception that the Chinese are disregarding the law for their own economic benefit has tainted the relationship between the Gabonese and the Chinese who reside here, fueling tensions that are mirrored in other aspects of society and threaten to disrupt the delicate balance of power artfully maintained over the last four decades since independence.
