Boulevard in the Kinshasa N'Djili commune with my iPhone from the roof
of the broken-down car that was to take us for our usual weekend
outing to Maluku, the small port and fishing community on the Congo
River Channel, about 120 km northeast of the Congolese capital.
Logging trailers of this kind are ubiquitous in Kinshasa where at
times--like three weeks ago in the southwestern Mbensenke Futi
area--they cause mayhem, destruction and death among unsuspecting
Kinshasa pedestrians when cables securing logs snap and spill their
cargoes onto crowded streets.
The Mbensenke accident I just alluded to involved a logging trailer
barreling down the slope of a hillside road and attempting a hard turn
without slowing down.
The jolt made the logs wobble uncontrollably, causing the metal straps
to snap, the forwarder and the trailer to overturn, and the bulky logs
to roll onto the highway--instantly killing a half-dozen pedestrians.
The drunk driver, who'd miraculously survived, fled the scene on foot
and is still at large.
But besides these horrendous traffic accidents, the frequency of these
logging trailers could frame and support the narratives of advocacy
groups such as Global Witness that allege that "in the future, there
will be no forests left" as the November 2012 Global Witness report is
titled.
This sounds like the alarm issued a few years back by the WWF about
"empty forests" (i.e., forests without games) in the DRC.
And, by the way, those logging trailers seen on Kinshasa streets
originate from Maluku where the port is so insignificant and so out of
sight to attract the attention of conservation and civil society
groups. Those logs come from upstream, from the rainforest of the
Equateur Province.
According to Global Witness, the industrial deforestation now taking
place in the Congo was hastened by a combination of logging reform
laws hijacked by the elite, a languishing "Community Forest
Management" decree, and the active encouragement of World Bank's
foresters.
A press release by Global Witness introducing its October 2012 report
titled "The art of logging industrially in the Congo" states (I
reformat for readability):
"The "Artisanal Logging Permits" are designed to allow Congolese
communities to carry out small-scale logging in their forests.
"But in practice, they are being used by foreign loggers to exploit
Congo's forests on an industrial scale, primarily for buyers in China.
"DRC is the second most forested country on earth and 40 million
Congolese depend on the forest for income, food, building materials or
medicine.
"However, decades of weak laws and poor government have allowed
logging companies to plunder the forests, with very few benefits
reaching communities.
"A 2002 freeze on the creation of new logging concessions was designed
to stop the expansion of industrial logging until long-promised
reforms of the sector have been carried out.
"However, this misuse of artisanal permits has provided a way for
officials and loggers to continue opening up new swathes of forest to
industrial logging."
According to that press release, the report "finds [that] 146
artisanal permits have been handed out to loggers in Bandundu Province
alone since 2010, affecting an area equivalent to over 11,000 football
pitches."
As for the so-called "forest community management," the press release
had this to say:
"A draft Decree on Community Forests would allow communities to play
more of a role in managing forests and to benefit from properly
managed artisanal logging. However, the decree has been awaiting
signature by the DRC's Prime Minister since 2010."
The press release also read as if lifted from a page of the book "Law
and Disorder in the Postcolony" edited by Comaroff and Comaroff in
which it is evinced that the uncanny proliferation of laws in
postcolonial states is often accompanied and offset by massive
instances of scoffing of the same laws:
"The Congolese authorities have been routinely breaking their own laws
when handing out these logging permits.
"This should set alarm bells ringing for anyone who is buying hardwood
from DRC and working to comply with US and EU laws against importing
illegal timber."
(Source: http://www.globalwitness.org/library/widespread-abuse-logging-permits-opens-congo's-forests-more-destruction)
Another Global Witness press release issued in February 2013 reads in
part (once again, I reformat for readability):
"An independent evaluation leaked earlier this week found that the
World Bank's support for the logging of tropical rainforests is
failing in its key aims of preventing their destruction and addressing
rural poverty.
"But, according to sources in the Bank, its forestry department is
refusing to reconsider its approach, is lobbying the Board hard to
avoid being held accountable for its failures, and has stated its
intention to continue supporting tropical forest logging.
"The World Bank's evaluation confirms what has long been obvious –
cutting down trees on an industrial scale is not the way to preserve
the world's remaining tropical forests or help the people that live in
them." said Rick Jacobsen, Head of International Forest Policy at
Global Witness. "When Bank Board members meet on Monday to decide next
steps, they need to act on the evaluation's findings and demand that
the Bank pursue alternatives to industrial logging in tropical forests
that better help the poor and preserve forests."
"Over the years, the World Bank has supported the expansion of
industrial logging in some of the world's most important and
endangered rainforests in countries such as Cambodia, Cameroon,
Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, and Liberia. In Cambodia,
Congo and Liberia this prompted formal complaints from communities
living in the forests that the Bank was harming their livelihoods.
[...]
"The Bank's foresters remain in denial and resistant to all efforts to
hold them accountable to the people whose interests they are supposed
to serve. In the meantime, the evidence continues to pile up that
industrial logging in tropical forests mainly benefits a few
international logging companies and corrupt government officials,"
said Rick Jacobsen. "Increasingly, scientific research is revealing
that the decades-old dogma about the benefits of industrial logging is
more about politics than science, and is certainly not backed up by
the reality on the ground. The Bank and its member governments have
avoided this reality for too long; now they need to take action."
(Source: http://www.globalwitness.org/library/world-bank-refuses-review-support-logging-tropical-rainforests-despite-criticism-its-own)
In the meantime, disenfranchised residents of the republic can only
watch powerlessly the merry-go-round of logging trailers on Kinshasa
highways and pray that they don't happen to be in the proximity when
these road mastodons go rogue!
***
PHOTO: Alex Engwete
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