Gabon: Perceptions vs Reality

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.”[1] 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.

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[1] John Ghazvinian. Untapped: The Scramble for Africa’s Oil. 2007.

War: What is it Good For?

As I lay in bed last night in my stuffy Harlem apartment with the screenless bedroom window set ajar, I began to hear the unmistakable buzzing of a mosquito in my ear. Once the mosquito met a violent and undoubtedly premature death, I returned to bed and began to consider the role of the Mosquito writ large in the grand scheme of things. You know: circle of life, food chain type stuff. While I’m sure that they serve some positive purpose on the planet, I couldn’t think of one. All of I could think of was the spread of malaria, disease and general annoyance around the world. Then I began to think that perhaps the spread of disease was its positive contribution to the planet after all. Given that man has no natural predator, maybe the general spread of disease was designed to thin our numbers and keep nature in balance. Maybe disease does play a significant role in that regard, but it has to be more than that. Lots of people die from mosquito-born diseases such as malaria and dengue fever, but I can’t imagine that enough people die from such diseases to make a significant dent in our booming population.

That’s were man comes in.

There are over 6 billion humans on earth, and I read just yesterday that demographers project a human population of 12 billion by 2050. I think that 6 billion is probably already too many. I can’t imagine the stress that a population twice that size will place on the Earth. As we have seen time and time again in nature, a species in an environment with no natural predator tends to reproduce without impediment. But perhaps we do in fact have a natural predator that no one really considers.

Ourselves.

From the beginning, human history has been riddled with violence. So much so, that the study of history is often tracked by the occurrences of war. War is the primary focus and everything else simply goes to explain what happened after the last war and what lead up to the next one. It is not uncommon for hundreds of thousands of people to be killed over the course of a single war. I can’t think of anything else that even comes close to claiming as many lives over a comparably short period of time. Small fish eat plankton, big fish eat smaller fish, bears eat big fish, and then humans make coats and rugs out of bears. We’re at the top of the food chain. Aside from the occasional shark attack, dog mauling or unfortunate encounter with a cannibal, humans don’t get eaten by anything else, but that doesn’t mean that we ourselves aren’t preyed upon. We’re the product of our own ambition, greed and pride. We wage war for the accumulation of wealth and power, and one could argue that as a result, we provide a valuable service to nature. By taking on the responsibility of reducing our numbers, we have managed to maintain a rough balance with other populations on earth.

Perhaps in the grand scheme of things, war is actually good for something.

China is the most populated nation on Earth with over 1.3 billion people. In addition to that, the young adult Chinese population is disproportionately male, as an unfortunate result of a generation of its One Child policy. Given the abundance of young Chinese men and the dearth of young Chinese women for them to marry, some predict that a grand war instigated by China is inevitable. They point to examples and history and argue that the only way to either acquire enough marriage-aged women or significantly reduce the number of sexually frustrated Chinese men would be for the Chinese to wage a war of expansion. If they win, they’ll kill the men and take the women of the territory that they have occupied. If they lose, however, a significant number of young Chinese men will have been killed in the process. Either way: problem solved. I don’t know about the likelihood of any of that, but this does provide an example of how through the use of war, mankind provides a check on its own growth, despite the fact that population control wasn’t the goal.

This trend may be changing, however. As mankind becomes more advanced and integrated across borders, it appears that the need of war as a check on population growth diminishes and other tools are employed. The best example of this is the European Union, a major component of the Security Zone touted by international security analysts. Together with the US and Japan, the EU represents a zone in which war is not only unlikely, but almost unthinkable. The inextricably integrated economies and politics of these countries make war among them virtually impossible. This is especially remarkable when one considers that fact that both Europe and Japan would have very little history to speak of if the discussion of war were taken off the table. Along with the generation of unprecedented peace and prosperity that has swept across Western Europe, the EU has also witnessed declines in population. I believe that all Western European nations, with the possible exception of Ireland and Spain, have seen dwindling birth rates, with Germany and Italy leading the pack. As European families have become more prosperous and men and women alike have careers on which to focus, the emphasis on bearing children has diminished. Couples that would have had 2 or 3 children a generation ago may now decide to only have one child or none at all. The inverse correlation between prosperity and birth rate has global implications. Women in economically depressed parts of Africa and Latin America tend to bear more children then comparably aged women in Western Europe or Japan, both of which are struggling with the short run economic effects of a dwindling population. As the birth rates in Europe and Japan continue to fall, I suspect to see increased migration to these areas from economically depressed regions of the world. Hopefully, this increased global mobility and integration and the resulting increased investment in human capital in the developing world will allow prosperity to spread throughout the world.

Once we’ve truly achieved global prosperity, instead of creating new people and figuring out a way to kill them off later, maybe we can just start creating fewer people in the first place.

Nuclear Fusion

I just attended a lecture on the potential of fusion to meet our global energy needs in the somewhat-distant future. According to applied physicists, at temperatures that exceed 100 million degrees, it may be possible to fuse together sub-atomic particles to produce vast amounts on energy. I don’t quite understand the science behind all of it, but theoretically, fusion technology promises nearly unlimited carbon-free energy. Furthermore, scientists are optimistic that they can produce “green” nuclear energy that produces no radioactive waste and is so safe that there is no need for emergency evacuation plans for areas surrounding the nuclear facilities. As an added bonus, with the type of nuclear fusion they are studying, there is no danger of proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The only problem is that they haven’t quite figured out how to do it yet.

The EU, US, China, Korea, Japan, Russia, and maybe others, have pledged $11 billion to build the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, an experimental plant which will be located in France to make the theory of nuclear fusion a reality. If I remember correctly, they hope to prove that nuclear fusion is viable within the next 10 years and then make it commercially available by 2050.

2050 is still a ways off, but if this thing works the way scientists hope it will and big polluters like the US, China, and the EU take concrete steps to curb global warming in the meantime, maybe mankind isn’t doomed after all.

The Rebirth of the Electric Car??

Last year's documentary by Chris Paine entitled Who Killed the Electric Car? told the story of the ill-fated EV1, the fully electric car introduced by GM in California in the mid-90s. Although I definitely recommend checking out the film, you don't need to actually watch it know that the EV1 is no longer around. The film explores various causes for the automobile's demise, but, unsurprisingly, big auto and politics were the chief culprits.

However, in a move that I believe caught many people by surprise, GM unveiled at the recent Detroit Auto Show the Chevy Volt , an electric-gasoline hybrid that could be available as early as 2010. Of course, the Prius has been around since 2000, so what makes this hybrid any different? Well, unlike the Prius or other hybrids currently on the market, the Chevy Volt could potentially run forever without using a single drop of gasoline. After charging the battery at home for 6 hours, the Volt can go 40 miles on battery power alone. GM asserts that the majority of Americans live within 20 miles of work, so if that's the case, a normal weekday commute could be done completely using battery-powered electricity. When in fact a person needs to drive more than 40 miles without re-charging the battery, a three-cylinder engine kicks in to burn fuel to recharge the battery, potentially boosting fuel economy to 150 miles per gallon! Furthermore, the engine is equipped to burn E85, which is 85/15 ethanol/gasoline mix. The use of E85, they claim, would mean that the car could go over 525 miles per gallon of petroleum. While there are still some concerns surrounding the efficiency of ethanol production in the US, I imagine that if the ethanol technology in the US isn't able to meet demand at an acceptable price, we could potentially import ethanol from more efficient (and friendlier) nations, such as Brazil, until we could rely solely on domestic production.

Given the decades of neglect and self-interest in terms of environmental sustainability, I hope that 2007 will see a growing trend towards greener business, the likes of which we first began seeing on a significant scale in 2006.

Oceanic Carbon Sequestration

Current Temperature in New York City: 59 degrees
Expected High Tomorrow: 66 degrees

While I am definitely enjoying the very mild winter here in New York this year, I can't shake this sinking feeling that 5 or 10 years from now science and society will look back at this winter as a major point in the progression of global warming. Columbia University economist and director of the Earth Institute Jeffrey Sachs argues that the global ecosystem acts as a "step function". In much the same way that a bathtub can continue to accept water without any ill effects until suddenly the water reaches the top and begins to overflow onto the floor below, the earth's ecosystem can accept continuous environmental stress until one day it reaches its limit and begins to rapidly deteriorate. I worry that this winter of near record-breaking warm temperatures here in the northeast is signaling that the bathtub has begun to overflow.

Fortunately, however, there are some very intelligent people out there working on some very new ways of turning back the clock on global warming. One interesting path of research is carbon sequestration -- pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and burying it deep underground. While scientists are still working on ways to actually make that a reality, one economist/inventor, Philip Kithil, thinks he has a way to sequester carbon in our oceans to the ocean floor. As reported in the Guardian , there is a "barrel-shaped type of plankton called salps, which feed on algae and excrete dense pellets of carbon that sink to the ocean floor." By using a system of plastic tubes installed throughout the ocean, Kithil argues that colder, nutrient-rich water can be pulled from the deep ocean and brought closer to the surface to promote a suitable environment for algae. With the abundance of algae, the salp plankton will begin to flourish and through their biological processes, naturally sequestering carbon from the surface down to the ocean floor. Furthermore, Kithil believes that once the systems of tubes are in place, their output could be accelerated in order to further cool the surface water ahead of incoming hurricanes, which strengthen as they move along warm water.

The downside, of course, is that all of this is going to cost hundreds of billions of dollars, but I figure if the US alone can spend over $300 billion on losing a war in Iraq, I think that the global community can scrape together enough money to make innovations like this a reality.

Let's face it: if we mess up this planet, we don't really have anywhere else to go.

The Highlights

Here are a few of the points that I thought were interesting from this morning’s White House Press Conference. The New York Times has the complete transcript online.


The Reluctant Environmentalist

Bush: The American people expect us to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and increase our use of alternative energy sources. So we must step up our research and investment in hydrogen fuel cells, hybrid plug-in and battery-powered cars…

a. tyrell: If you take a look at the film “Who Killed the Electric Car” you’ll see that not only is the electric car possible, but we already have the technology for it. And I’m not talking about those funny-looking one-seater cars you see on prototype car tests on TV. These are completely regular looking electric cars that regular people owned and used during the early 90s until the auto industry decided that they wanted to take them off the market.


A Bit of an Understatement

Question: Mr. President, less than two months ago, at the end of one of the bloodiest months in the war, you said: Absolutely, we're winning. Yesterday, you said: We're not winning; we're not losing. Why did you drop your confident assertion about winning?

Bush: …My comments yesterday reflected the fact that we're not succeeding nearly as fast as I wanted, when I said it at the time, and that the conditions are tough in Iraq, particularly in Baghdad.

…Victory in Iraq is achievable. It hadn't happened nearly as quickly as I hoped it would have. I know it's -- the fact that there is still, you know, unspeakable sectarian violence in Iraq, I know that's troubling to the American people.


A Remorseful President

Question: Mr. President, Lyndon Johnson famously didn't sleep during the Vietnam War; questioning his own decisions. You have always seemed very confident of your decisions, but I can't help but wonder if this has been a time of painful realization for you, as you yourself have acknowledged that some of the policies you hoped would succeed have not. And I wonder if you can talk to us about that. Has it been a painful time?

Bush: Most painful aspect of my presidency has been knowing that good men and women have died in combat. I -- I read about it every night. I -- my heart breaks for a mother or father or husband and wife or son and daughter. It just does. And so, when you ask about pain, that's pain… But the most painful aspect of the presidency is the fact that I know my decisions have caused young men and women to lose their lives.


Alternative Energy

Bush: nuclear power is going to be an essential source, in my judgment, of future electricity for the United States and places like China and India. Nuclear power is renewable, and nuclear power does not emit one greenhouse gas. And it makes a lot of sense for us to share technologies that will enable people to feel confident that the new nuclear power plants that are being built are safe, as well as technologies that'll eventually come to the fore that will enable us to reduce the wastes, the toxicity of the waste and the amount of the waste. Continue to invest in clean-coal technologies. Abundance of coal here in America. And we need to be able to tell the American people we're going to be able to use that coal to generate electricity in environmentally friendly ways. My only point to you is: We got a comprehensive plan to achieve the objective that most Americans support, which is less dependency upon oil.

a. tyrell: If he’s as concerned with alternative sources of energy and decreasing US dependency on foreign oil as he says he is, what has he been doing in this regard for the last 6 years? I can’t think of a single significant measure proposed by the Bush Administration that was primarily in support of alternative sources of energy. There has been some support for hydrogen fuels and ethanol derived from corn, but given the predicted impracticality and prohibitive expense of hydrogen fuel and the glaring inefficiency of US ethanol production initiatives, I would suspect that support for these technologies has less to do with the environment as it does with covertly protecting agriculture and private industry.


Social Values

Question: …Mary's having a baby. And you have said that you think Mary Cheney will be a loving soul to a child. Are there any changes in the law that you would support that would give same-sex couples greater access to things such as legal rights, hospital visits, insurance, that would make a difference, even though you said it's your preference -- you believe that it's preferable to have one man-one woman...

Bush: No, I've always said that we ought to review law to make sure that people are treated fairly…

a tyrell: What about support for the Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriage? I wouldn’t view that as a measure that would ensure that all people are treated fairly.


Where’d that surplus go again?

Bush: My message to the Iranian people is: You can do better than to have somebody try to rewrite history [referring to Iranian President Ahmadinejad]. You can do better than somebody who hasn't strengthened your economy…

a tyrell: So I’m still unclear on how President Bush has strengthened our economy. Was it through tax cuts to the rich that led to huge corporate profits, but virtually no growth in wages and very little job growth until fairly recently? Or was it by spending $300 Billion in Iraq over the last 3 years while we continue to fund our deficits by borrowing from China and other nations?

So if the Iranians deserve better, does that hold true for us too?