With its oil reserves in decline, Gabon is betting that careful logging can safeguard the vast wealth of its forests, halving carbon emissions associated with the industry while producing more timber.
How Central African countries like Gabon manage their share of the world's second-largest rainforest is critical. The so-called lungs of Africa store more carbon per hectare than the Amazon, help regulate temperatures, and generate rain for millions in the arid Sahel and distant Ethiopian highlands.
Gabon faces a conundrum. Its relatively untouched share of the Congo Basin rainforest makes it one of the world's most forested countries, a haven for endangered animals and one of the few net absorbers of climate-warming carbon dioxide. "Let them come here and show me how to manage the forest and how to create jobs for the Gabonese people and how to replace the oil economy that we're going to lose," he said.
This means making sure that concessions mind their carbon impact, build narrower roads, fell trees in the direction that causes least damage, and use less destructive equipment. To combat these threats, Gabon must monitor its forests closely and not rely on outside auditors like the Forest Stewardship Council , said Florida University biologist Francis Putz, who worked on the original RIL-C research.
Gabon is also working with the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency on a timber-tracing system, while Gabon's space observation agency is monitoring forest cover.
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