By Melike Yazir Gocer
With 88 percent of its land covered by forest, Gabon obtained $17 million from the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI), a UN-backed program, for its contribution to the absorption of carbon dioxide in the world through its forest preservation programmes.
It is thanks to these activities that the Gabonese capital was chosen to host the “African Climate Week” meetings between August 29 to September 2.
These efforts made conversations between civil society organisations and leaders possible in order to define the position of African states ahead of COP27, scheduled to take place in November.
$2 billion economic opportunity
Gabon, unanimously applauded for its exemplary fight to preserve its biodiversity and to combat global warming, is one of the few countries in the world whose economy has a negative carbon balance.
The country absorbs 140 million tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere while emitting only 40 million tonnes.
And for the Gabonese government, the cost of preserving biodiversity must be borne by the biggest polluters and by those responsible for global warming.
Thanks to its negative carbon balance, the ‘second lung of the world’ wants to be rewarded for its success in defending and preserving nature instead of exploiting it for wood and the production of palm oil, which is the case in a number of other African countries.
Lee White, an ecologist and Gabon's minister of water, forest, the sea and environment, said his country wanted to "harvest its forests sustainably to generate income."
Carbon credits
Made possible by the “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation” mechanism of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, carbon credits represent an important opportunity for Gabon.
Thanks to this market, which is reserved for countries and companies, carbon credits could serve as a greater source of income than that which is earned through the exploitation of forests for agriculture.
In Europe, countries must adhere to a maximum quota of carbon dioxide emissions; in France, for example, this quota was limited to 450 million tonnes in 2020. If a country or company emits more than the authorised quota, it must buy carbon credits to compensate for its excessive emissions.
A factory in France could very well offset its carbon emissions by purchasing carbon credits from Gabon.
Libreville wants to create 187 million carbon credits — with one carbon credit being equal to one tonne of carbon dioxide — and plans to sell half of them to generate $2 billion.
The country is also finalising a law on the management of revenue from the sale of carbon credits. It is expected that 35 percent of revenue will be reinvested in forest protection and sustainable development, 15 percent into rural communities and 50 percent in debt services and budgetary support.
While criticism of the carbon credit market’s ethics have emerged, White sees carbon credits as essential to the survival of the rainforests.
Marine biodiversity
To achieve the objectives it set in the fight against global warming, the government has launched several initiatives, including forestation, maritime and wildlife species protection, and a number of other action plans.
By creating the largest oceanic reserve in Africa, Libreville is protecting its marine biodiversity and implementing, in part, sustainable fishing.
A network of 20 marine parks and aquatic reserves protects 26 percent of Gabon's territorial waters and covers 53,000 square kilometres. Fishermen are no longer allowed to use unsustainable fishing techniques and certain areas have been closed to fishing.
While scientists won't argue that protecting marine areas makes marine habitats resilient to climate change, they do maintain that healthier habitats make marine areas more resilient to harmful changes.
It is, for instance, impossible to protect coral reefs from rising temperatures, but protecting reefs from overfishing and pollution can reduce their sensitivity to the warming of the ocean and promote their recovery.
For example, more than 90 percent of the reef in the Chagos Archipelago Marine Protected Area had disappeared due to a bleaching phenomenon in 1998, but in 2010, the reef that was put under protection recovered.
Forest protection and the struggle against poaching
The Gabonese government has created 13 national parks — which cover almost 11 percent of the national territory — to keep the country's forest cover healthy. One of Gabon’s other priorities is the preservation of animal species threatened by extinction.
If the establishment of the 13 parks enables the partial protection of animals including the elephant, the gorilla, the chimpanzee or the panther, brigades track down poachers in several parts of the forest.
The success of these efforts is visible: While the global population of forest elephants has fallen by 86 percent in 30 years, it has doubled in Gabon in the past 10 years.
The public may often be made aware of the restrictions on hunting, but the way humans — especially those whose livelihoods mainly rely on agriculture and hunting — and protected animals should cohabitate has not yet been defined.
Some denounce the impact animals have on their plantations: Animals — elephants, in particular — ravage food crops, but inhabitants of these areas have no right to intervene or interfere with the animal.
Given that animals are destroying crops, local inhabitants argue that they are not able to defend their source of food.
Above all, the country is raising public awareness about climate issues. Awareness meetings are organised to explain the advantages of protecting fauna and flora and to outline not only the importance of preserving ecosystem services, but also their impact on the livelihoods and future of local inhabitants.
