Full text of "Africa's environment : the final frontier : hearing before the Subcommittee on Africa of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fourth Congress, second session, July 17, 1996"

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] \An?ICA'S ENVIRONMENT: THE FINAL FRONTIER

Y4,INB/16:AF8

Africa's Environnent: The Final Fro...

hLiliAKlNG

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JULY 17, 1996

Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations

^/J

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 1996

For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office
Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Washington, DC 20402
ISBN 0-16-053645-6

AFRICA'S ENVIRONMENT: THE HNAL FRONTIER

Y4.IN8/16:AF8

Africa's Environnent: The Final Fro...

Hi^AKlNG

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JULY 17, 1996

Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations

'SSo

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
27-277 CC WASHINGTON : 1996

For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office
Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Washington, DC 20402
ISBN 0-16-053645-6

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL REI^TIONS
BKNJAMIN A. OILMAN. New York, Chairman

WILLIAM F. GOODLING, Pennsylvania

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa

TOBY ROTH, Wisconsin

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois

DOUG BEREUTER. Nebraska

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JAN MEYERS, Kansas

ELTON GALLEGLY, California

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina

DANA ROHRABACHER, California

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California

PETER T. KING, New York

JAY KIM, California

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas

DAVID FUNDERBURK, North Carolina

STEVEN J. CHABOT, Ohio

MARSHALL "MARK" SANFORD, South

Carolina
MATT SALMON, Arizona
AMO HOUGHTON, New York
TOM CAMPBELL, California

LEE H. HAMILTON, Indiana

SAM GI':JDENS0N, Connecticut

TOM Ij\NTOS, California

ROBERT G. TORRICELLI. New Jersey

HOWARD L. BERMAN. California

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York

HARRY JOHNSTON, Florida

ENI F.H. FALE0MAVAF:GA, American

Samoa
MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY, Georgia
ALCEE L. HASTINGS. P^lorida
ALBERT RUSSELL WYNT<, Maryland
JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia
VICTOR O. FRAZER, Virgin Islands (Ind.)
CHARLIE ROSE, North Carolina
PAT DANNER, Missouri

Richard J. Garon, Chief of Staff
Michael H. Van Dusen, Minority Chief of Staff

Subcommittee on Africa

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN. Florida. Chairperson

TOBY ROTH, Wisconsin
SAM BROWNBACK. Kansas
STEVEN J. CHABOT, Ohio
MARSHALL "MARK" SANFORD, South

Carolina
MATT SALMON, Arizona
AMO HOUGHTON, New York
TOM CAMPBELL, California

Mauricio J. Tamargo, Subcommittee Staff Director

Phiup Christenson, Deputy Staff Director
David Adams. Democratic Professional Staff Member

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
HARRY JOHNSTON, Florida
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
ALCEE L. HASTINGS. Florida
VICTOR O. FRAZER. Virgin Islands

(II)

CONTENTS

WITNESSES

Page

Hon. Gary Bombardier, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Africa, Agency

for International Development 3

Mr. Michael Wright, President and Chief Executive Officer, African Wildlife

Foundation 11

Mr. Stephen Mills, Human Rights and Environmental Campaign Director,

Sierra Club 15

APPENDIX

Prepared statements:

Hon. Gary Bombardier 25

Mr. Michael Wright 39

Mr. Stephen Mills 45

Other material:

Statement for the record from Elizabeth Rihoy, Director, Washington
Affairs, Africa Resources Trust 57

(III)

AFRICA'S ENVIRONMENT: THE FINAL
FRONTIER

WEDNESDAY, JULY 17, 1996

House of Representatives,

Subcommittee on Africa,
Committee on International Relations,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:05 p.m. in room
2200, Raybum House Office Building, Hon. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
(chair of the subcommittee), presiding.

Ms. Ros-Lehtenen. The subcommittee will come to order.

We want to welcome Congressman Alcee Hastings' daughter,
Chelsea, who is with us today and she will be attending Florida A
& M. Congresswoman Carrie Meek would be very happy with your
choice of higher education institutions. Thank you, Matt and Alcee,
for being with us today.

Environmental issues are of great concern to all of us but Alcee
and I, being from Florida, we understand how important a topic it
is as we seek to protect our State's coral reefs, the Everglades and
safeguard species that are native to our State, such as the manatee
and the Florida deer, from extinction. Miami itself has the normal
environmental challenges of any large urban area, even though
heavy industry is not a significant sector of our economy. However,
the need to protect the environment knows no municipal, State or
national border. The environmental damage to one region of the
world necessarily affects the global environment.

As we take initiatives to resolve our own environmental difficul-
ties, we cannot remain detached or unconcerned about what is hap-
pening in other regions of the world. And Africa is the last frontier
for the environment for two contradictory reasons.

First, it is a continent where there are substantial areas of the
environment which have not been changed by large-scale human
settlement and activities. While there has been some damage to Af-
rica's ecological landscape, it is important to remember that there
is much that remains to be preserved and which must be preserved
from further damage. Some African countries possess species that
cannot be found anywhere else in the world.

Second, Africa is the last frontier because there is so much that
needs to be done to create an effective environmental protection
movement and to enforce environmental safeguards. Protection of
the African environment must begin with addressing the problems
of governance that plague so many countries on the Continent.

A distinguished Nigerian geographer, Akin Mobogunje, wrote re-
cently that while there are international conventions in effect in

(1)

most African countries and while laws have been passed and regu-
lations have been issued to protect the endangered species of the
countries, most species in the Continent are there for the taking.
Legal initiatives to stop urban pollution are too often not enforced
and the laws and the regulations are not enforced either protecting
the endangered species.

One special area of concern for the environment that almost all
countries in Africa must face is the field of urban pollution. It is
a special challenge in Africa because many countries on the Con-
tinent have a very rapidly urbanizing population — all too often, an
urbanization pattern where only one large city is the focus of al-
most all the urbanization. The city of Lagos, with its population of
up to ten million, was built as a city for 300,000. This often over-
whelms the capacity of the available municipal services of the city
and exceeds the financial ability of the government to provide fur-
ther services and facilities. Basic environmental protections that
we take for granted, such as clean drinking water, solid waste col-
lection and sewer systems, are often lacking in large parts of these
large urban areas.

Too many people believe that there is a tradeoff between develop-
ment and environmental concerns. Some argue that the environ-
mental protection is a luxury that African countries cannot afford
at this time. Yet, as many have pointed out, the history of Africa's
environmental degradation has demonstrated that the environ-
mental havoc wrought in most countries over the past several dec-
ades has not improved the average person's standard at all.

We are faced in Africa with economics that are deteriorating as
rapidly as the environment and theories of tradeoff between the
economic development and the environment have little factual
basis. The fundamental question is thus how to achieve a balance
between human needs and interests and the environmental protec-
tion.

The concept of "sustainable development" is relevant here. The
development programs that we undertake must be environmentally
sound if they are to contribute to the long-term prosperity of the
Continent. Overgrazing of pasture lands ultimately destroys the
ability of the land to provide for human needs. Poor soil conserva-
tion practices on crop lands destroys the ability of the soil to
produce needed food and fiber. In all too many African countries,
the challenge is to control man's demand on the natural resources
of the country in order to maximize the survival of those resources
and man's ability to benefit from them.

I would like to now turn to our other members of our subcommit-
tee to see if they have opening statements as well.

Congressman Hastings.

Mr. Hastings. Madam Chairlady, thank you very much and
thank you for holding this hearing. I really am interested in hear-
ing Administrator Bombardier and so I will be very brief.

I was thinking as you were speaking. Madam Chairman — and I
associate myself with all of your remarks — about the $200 million
that our budgetary constraints are just permitting that paltry
amount for assistance in restoration of the Everglades in Florida
alone. And when you compare $200 million that will not complete
the work of the Everglades with the USAID request of $112 million

for the entirety of the continent of Africa, and I recognize that we
are talking about American taxpayers' money and perhaps the
criticaHty is not viewed in the same sense, but let me give one rea-
son why Africa, the continent, should be of critical concern, as you
have expressed.

Among the things when you underscore economic development
would have to be pharmaceutical research and Africa is still the re-
pository of some of the world's rain forests where many of the
drugs that save the world, or may be able to save the world, can
be found. If for no other reason, we should be intimately and di-
rectly involved and I call on us to do everything that we can to pro-
vide the necessary financial assistance to complete the work that
USAID is doing and in working in further protection and avoidance
of continuing degradation in the Africa continent's environment.

Thank you. Madam Chairman.

Ms. Ros-Lehtenen. Thank you so much, Congressman Hastings.

Congressman Salmon.

Mr. Salmon. Madam Chairman, I think you and Congressman
Hastings have summarized everything very well

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you.

Mr. Salmon [continuing], and I would associate my remarks
with both of yours. I would, however, dispute on the sheet that we
got today delineating today's meeting, it said, "The Final Frontier."
And I would tell you that Captain Kirk would take umbrage with
that.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you. Point well noted. Thank you so
much.

Congressman Johnston.

Mr. Johnston. I have no comment.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you.

Our first panelist for today's hearing is Mr. Gary Bombardier
who serves as deputy assistant administrator for Africa at the U.S.
Agency for International Development. I am sure Mr. Bombardier
feels right at home appearing before us today, as he is a veteran
of Capitol Hill. Prior to assuming his current position, he served
as an associate staff member for Representative Matt McHugh on
the House Appropriations Committee. Previously, he was a profes-
sional staff member on the Committee to Study the Senate Com-
mittee System; assistant professor at the University of Maryland;
professional staff member on the House Government Operations
Committee; and as research associate at the Brookings Institution.

He holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in political science from Harvard
University and a B.A. from the University of Massachusetts. He
has received numerous accolades for both his academic and profes-
sional accomplishments, and we welcome him to our subcommittee
today.

Thank you, Gary.

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE GARY BOMBARDIER, DEP-
UTY ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, AGENCY FOR INTER-
NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Mr. Bombardier. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.

I do have to confess that it is a bit different being on this side
of the table rather than that side of the table and I am not sure
it is entirely comfortable. But I will certainly try and do my best.

I would like to say at the beginning that you made a very power-
ful opening statement and we welcome this hearing and we are
very grateful for the opportunity to testify.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you.

Mr. Bombardier. I do have a prepared statement, Madam Chair-
man

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Yes. We will be glad to put it in the record.

Mr. BoMBAitDiER. Thank you.

Madam Chair, think of an environmental challenge, any environ-
mental challenge, and it is a challenge facing Africa today. For ex-
ample, we know the population of Africa is likely to double by the
year 2020. We know approximately 80 percent of Africa's people de-
pend upon farming in one form or another for their livelihood and
that because of growing population pressures, they are being
pushed onto increasingly marginal lands. We know that soil erosion
and soil degradation are already serious problems in Africa, reduc-
ing its capacity to feed its people.

Perhaps this seems a distant concern to those of us living here
in the United States. But can we as easily ignore some of the other
environmental challenges Africa faces? Today, the last major tropi-
cal rain forest in Africa, the Congo Basin, is under threat. The fu-
ture of the Congo Basin is obviously important to the 65 million
people who live there. But what happens there will affect all of us
because it is the second largest tropical rain forest in the world. If
destroyed, it will release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which
will almost certainly contribute to global climate change, and we
will not be able to escape those changes here in the United States.

Let me cite another example. We know that biodiversity in Africa
is threatened. What does the loss of biodiversity mean? At one
level, it could mean the loss of animals that give us so much pleas-
ure, such as the forest elephants, gorillas and chimpanzees. And
perhaps this is a loss we could live with, if we had to. But the truth
is, we do not know the full range of plant and animal species that
would be lost if biodiversity in Africa is destroyed. And, thus, we
cannot begin to estimate the potential advances in medicine, agri-
culture and other fields that would be lost to the world as a whole.

What are the root causes of these environmental problems? Cer-
tainly, rapid population growth, urbanization, the movement of
people resulting from the lack of economic opportunity, and civil
strife have all placed increasing pressure on the environment. Pov-
erty itself is a cause. But underlying these are a series of key prob-
lems affecting the way people use resources.

Solutions often seem to require too much time to those in imme-
diate need. An African woman who needs to feed her children to-
night is unlikely to pav much attention to the long-term con-
sequences associated witn removing wood from her land. Too much
attention was given to building fences and parks, while too little
attention was paid to the needs of local communities in which the
parks and fences were located.

Economic incentives often promote the short-term exploitation of
resources. In Madagascar, the Forestry Department used to charge

the same fee for cutting pine trees as for harvesting the rare
pahsandra, a tree that takes a century to regenerate. Too often,
people do not have secure use of the land, trees, and other re-
sources and thus lack the incentive to use such resources respon-
sibly.

Finally, the environment in Africa is so diverse and complex that
single-issue solutions can often lead to confusion, wasted resources
and even more deterioration. The environmental consequences of
conflict in the Horn of Africa, in Angola and Mozambique, and in
Liberia, cannot be understated. At the same time, scarcities of land
and other resources often are fundamental causes of conflict.

Yet not all is negative in Africa. There are many examples where
Africans are taking control of their future by taking control of their
environment. While problems differ, the recipes for environmental
progress share certain traits in common. By giving local people a
stake in managing their natural resources, we are beginning to see
that Africans can wisely balance their immediate needs with the
long-term needs of their children and grandchildren.

Throughout Africa, there is a rethinking of the respective roles
of the public and private sectors. For instance, government forestry
agents in Senegal and Mali now act in partnership with commu-
nities, providing technical support instead of acting as policemen.
As a consequence, communities and governments share responsibil-
ity for forest management and the forest resources are being sus-
tained. Throughout Africa, there have been many examples of en-
hanced coordination between donors, PVO's, host country govern-
ments and local communities to address the most critical problems
facing the environment.

Clearly, there is no certainty that the hopeful signs we are seeing
today will become the rule, yet it is also clear that Africa today is
a vastly different continent than it was a decade ago. Today, more
than 40 African countries have adopted, or are in the process of
adopting. National Environmental Action Plans (NEAP). In the
best of cases, such as Madagascar, these are developed in highly
participatory ways: set specific goals and objectives; establish prior-
ities for the limited use of funds; and become a mechanism through
which donors, host governments and people of Africa jointly col-
laborate in attacking environmental problems.

NEAP is just one example of the growing commitment of Afri-
cans to addressing the environmental challenges they face. There
are many others as well. And I am proud to say that USAID is
playing an important role in this effort as well. Since 1987, the Af-
rica Bureau has been implementing its environmental programs
through our Plan for Natural Resources Management. This plan fo-
cuses our efforts in three key areas: tropical forestry, sustainable
agriculture and biodiversity. We firmly believe that the way to
maximize our impact is by focusing scarce resources on a limited
range of issues and these are the areas where we believe that we
have a comparative advantage among the donor agencies.

There are two points I would like to stress in particular with re-
gard to our environmental programs. First, like physicians, we take
very seriously the injunction to do no harm. We are required under
agency environmental procedures to review every project design

within the agency. When we discover possible unintended environ-
mental impacts, we change our programs.

The second key element of our work in Africa is to focus on the
direct links between the environment and economic growth, espe-
cially as it affects the rural poor. We know we can make a dif-
ference because we are already doing so. In Mali, Francois
Coulibali and his family have doubled, in some cases tripled, yields
on their land while enhancing its capacity to continue producing in
the future. They have done so with our help but, more importantly,
they have done so for well over a decade now. And thousands of
their neighbors have adopted similar practices, to the benefit of
both the people and the environment.

We now have enough experiences as an agency to know what
works. Some of the key lessons learned include the following: first,
the importance of an enabling environment that is environmentally
friendly. If laws, policies and incentives are not environmentally
sensitive, results are unlikely.

Second, the need for collaborative strategic planning. None of the
problems we have discussed today can be resolved if tnose involved
in attempting to address them fail to cooperate. Nor will solutions
be sustainable unless they reflect priorities established by Africans
themselves. As donor resources decline, coordination becomes even
more important.

Third, incentives make a difference. A farmer who does not have
secure use of the land and who could be forced off it tomorrow has
little incentive to invest in the future. A community that does not
benefit from the wildlife with which it must co-exist will have no
stake in the future of that wildlife.

Finally, and most importantly, empowering people makes a dif-
ference.

As I said. Madam Chair, the challenges are great and the out-
come by no means certain. Much remains to be done. What I can
tell you is that the process, however slow it may seem, does pay
off and that is why it is so important to stay the course, to remain
engaged with Africa as it makes the transition to a more environ-
mentally sustainable and productive future.

Thank you very much. Madam Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bombardier appears in the ap-
pendix.]

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much.

Gary, it has been stated that many of the problems in Africa are
not necessarily inappropriate government policy but rather the im-
plementation and the execution of those policies. What sort of effort
is your agency making to improve the quality of the implementa-
tion of the policies of environmental protection in African coun-
tries?

Mr. Bombardier. We spend a lot of time thinking about capacity
building in African countries.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinp:n. Capacity building?

Mr. Bombardier. Capacity building.

First of all, what we are trying to do is two things. One is to get
people in African countries to focus on the environmental problems
they face, to identify what they think the priorities are, to set those
priorities for how limited donor resources are going to be used and

how their own resources are going to be used, and then to develop
plans to implement those priorities. And a key to this, of course,
is the capacity of governments and individuals to address the prob-
lems. And, since we have limited resources to address these prob-
lems, building the capacity of Africans to address them is very im-
portant.

Ms. Ros-Lehtenen. But how do we go around about to build that
capacity?

Mr. Bombardier. We do it in a number of ways. It can involve
demonstration projects in particular regions which show people im-
proved natural resource management techniques. It involves train-
ing. It involves discussions among people, government officials and
our missions on the ground. So there are a number of ways in
which this can be done.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Much of the improvement in the rural envi-
ronmental concerns such as soil erosion and overgrazing obviously
has to take place within the context of agricultural production of
crops and livestock, yet agricultural development programs seem to
be of decreasing importance within the overall AID program in Af-
rica.

What are the factors that led AID to reduce the priority of agri-
cultural programs that helped improve environmental practices in
Africa?

Mr. Bombardier. Well, some of the major factors, Madam Chair-
man, are reductions in funds. But beyond that, of course, it is the
flexibility in how we can use our funds.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Flexibility in how you can use them?

Mr. Bombardier. Yes. There are obviously priorities we are re-
quired to meet in using our funds. There are concerns within the
Administration itself and on Capitol Hill about certain areas which
are very important, like child survival. And so we get earmarks or
directives that tell us to spend so much money on particular kinds
of activities. These are all well-intended and these things are all
important and we are happy to do them.

But what we essentially end up with is gridlock. We have so
many earmarks and directives that we are not in a position to de-
velop the program in a particular country from the ground up to
reflect the priorities in that country. We are often in the position
of telling our missions that "We know you think that agricultural
programs are very important," or "We know you think that a par-
ticular activity is very important, but we do not have the resources
for that because we have to meet these directives and earmarks."

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. What is AID's role in the area of industrial
pollution? You talked about the agricultural concerns. Do you have
any assistance programs for controlling any environmental pro-
gram's problems related to mining or petroleum also and other
sorts of industries that might be sources of pollution?

Mr. Bombardier. Industrial pollution is an important problem
worldwide, but in terms of the scheme of things in Africa, it has
not been as large a problem. I do not mean to diminish the impor-
tance of the problem. In some areas, it is obviously very important.

You may have seen the article in the Washington Post, I believe
the day before yesterday, about mining in Ghana and the impact
that is having on some of the people who are trying to live off some

of the resources left behind by the mining companies. Mining, as
an extractive industry, can be very damaging to the environment.
We do not have a lot of programs in Africa focused on these areas.
We have limited resources, about $80 million currently, to focus on
all of the environmental problems in Africa. So we do not have the
resources to put toward programs in this particular area.

I guess I would add that it is not simply a question of resources.
These are areas where, within the agency and our global bureau,
to some extent within our own Africa bureau, we do have some in-
tellectual knowledge of these issues. So within the national envi-
ronmental planning process, we do try to bring what we know to
these areas. And to the extent that these are problems in a particu-
lar country, we do work with host governments to identify donors
who can address those problems.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you.

Congressman Hastings.

Mr. Hastings. Thank you very much. Madam Chairlady.

Just as a preface, when Congressman Johnston and Payne, my-
self and several of the staffers, some of whom are in the room, trav-
eled to Africa, we saw several research projects that AID was in-
volved in that demonstrated rather substantial successes. At the
same time, some projects such as in Niger

Harry, you may remember, we saw this weather project there
and since that time, the head of that country that Harry and I met
with has been emptied out because of conflict. And I am sure now
that that project is still running but so important.

I say that also in the context of drought and studies of drought
and how environmental degradation comes about without clear
data in that arena that could help to avoid it.

But you know something? After all is said, we live in a world of
people, and Americans assist in leading the charge, in being in love
with ivory and with wood and with leather and any number of
other things that hungry people do not think in terms of the abun-
dance that they have not had ever running out. And I can only use
by way of analogy my own life as a child in pristine Florida — and
I will be 60 my next birthday — Harry is going to be a little older
than me, but he knows pristine Florida as well — and, honest to
goodness, as a child where animals ran in the streets and you could
go to the lake and catch fish, I just never thought that that lake
would ever be dead or that the animals would ever run out.

My point is, education is going to be key and USAJD projects in-
volving education of the people in that capacity are really, really
important. Because where people are at war, where people are hun-
gry, where people have greedy leaders, the likelihood is not very
strong that we are going to have a whole lot of environmental sen-
sitivity and I think all of us understand that.

That said, my one question, Madam Chairlady, directed to our
witness is, in light of the budgetary constraints — and AID has
taken its share of the responsibility in making adjustment — are
there suggested environmental programs that may be cut?

I notice, in responding to the Chairlady, you did not say specifi-
cally where these things were going to come from and I now, since
this is an environmental hearing, ask you pointedly, do you plan

to cut any environmental programs in the cuts that I know that
you have to make?

And that is my only question, Madam Chair.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. That is a good question.

Mr. Bombardier. It will depend on the final shape of the foreign
aid appropriations bill that is passed this year. We have been able
to sustain the environmental and natural resource management
programs to this point in time. We would not like to cut those pro-
grams.

As you pointed out, I believe, we are requesting more in Fiscal
Year 1997 than we did in Fiscal Year 1996. But right now, we are
not thinking of cuts. We are not focused on cuts. We are focused
on a positive way of addressing those programs.

I would share one other comment, since you mentioned Niger.
You saw some very successful projects if you were in Niger. We
have had one of the most successful of our natural resources pro-
grams in that country. Of course, we are required by law to cut off
assistance to Niger as a result of the coup and we were all hoping
the recent elections would turn that situation around, but it is very
discouraging right now.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, Congressman Hastings.

Congressman Johnston.

Mr. Johnston. Just one observation. In South America, in a rain
forest in Brazil and areas like that, we established a policy of "debt
versus nature" swap; and traveling throughout Africa, their biggest
complaint is the debt that is saddled on them.

Has the Administration thought about that line of thought, can-
celing or reducing the debt for certain set-asides of pristine areas?

Mr. Bombardier. We have done some work in this area, particu-
larly in Madagascar, in terms of both debt for nature swaps and
in terms of environmental foundations that we help to establish
and that have long-term resources available to address these prob-
lems, including purchases. Although the discussion about these
techniques has been going on for a long time — I can remember it
from my days when I was up here on the Hill — it often takes Ad-
ministrations a long time to develop the procedures and we are just
beginning to get some good experience in Africa with this, so I
think we will be doing more of it in the future.

Mr. Johnston. Yes. If you can make really wholesale rec-
ommendations across the board on specific countries, because that
is killing them.

Mr. Bombardier. Sure.

Mr. Johnston. The other question I have is I have a bad habit
of reading all my own mail, and I got a letter today, coincidentally,
from Earth Action dealing with Central Africa, specifically the Re-
public of Gabon, and their rain forest and the fact that they are
logging it now and destroying it. And they have a map here of
Central Africa, the Republic of Gabon, Cameroon.

I was just wondering, you do not go into Gabon, because they
have oil so they do not need money. But are you concentrating at
all in that area — it says here their rain forest is larger than the
Amazon.

Mr. Bombardier. That is right. That is what I was referring to
in my testimony on the Congo Basin. Gabon, the countries you

mentioned — Zaire, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Central African
Republic and Congo — these are the countries in which the Congo
Basin is located and we have designed a new 5-year, $14-million
project, the Central African Regional Program for the Environment,
CARPE. We are going to be working closely with the global envi-
ronmental facility at the World Bank. It is going to be a very inno-
vative program which we manage completely through PVO's and
NGO's on the ground with support from a number of agencies be-
side ourselves. So we are very hopeful that we can begin the proc-
ess of turning around the destruction of the rain forest in the
Congo Basin.

Mr. Johnston. Last question. Madam Chairwoman.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Sure.

Mr. Johnston. In Angola, there are more land mines than there
are people. Has this been a deterrent to promoting environmental
programs, either in Angola or in other countries—Somalia, Rwan-
da?

Mr. Bombardier. It is a major contributor to environmental deg-
radation. People do not have access to land that would be fertile
and that could be used for productive farming and so people are
forced, to some degree, onto smaller and less desirable plots of
land. So land mines, the residue of conflict and civil war, are major
causes and impediments to environmental progress in these coun-
tries.

Mr. Johnston. Thank you.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you.

Congressman Houghton.

Mr. Houghton. I think I will wait.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. OK

Mr. Houghton. Thank you very much.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Congressman Payne.

Mr. Payne. Oh, I

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Would you like to make a statement or ask
some questions?

Mr. Payne. Well, I v/ill follow my colleague, Mr. Houghton. Al-
though I would like to mention that I, too, have a concern about
the Gabon and have written a letter to President Omar Bongo
about the degradation there in the rain forest and asking, espe-
cially in the Lope region, that they cease or revisit their degrada-
tion of that area.

I also have concern about Liberia. I understand that there has
been a tremendous amount of logging done, I guess primarily by
the French traders, and I understand even now at risk are some
wild bird preserves that habit in that particular forest and now
there is a question about the survival of some rare species and also
the civil war is creating the problem of logging.

Is there any effort going on through governments to at least raise
the concern — and many times there is a tremendous amount of ex-
ploitation when you have warring factions and it would seem to be
going on in Liberia, not only with timber but with other natural
resources — diamonds and things of that nature — that we have
heard about recently. But is there any concerted effort to have dis-
cussions on some levels with primarily European business people
of governments to question these practices?

Mr. Bombardier. Yes, sure. We are in constant touch with our
alHes about some of these concerns. In Liberia, the warring parties
have often used these resources to finance their campaign of death
and destruction. So it is a problem and it is going to be a very dif-
ficult problem to address, quite frankly, until we can get that situa-
tion stabilized in Liberia and begin to go in there and see just ex-
actly how much damage has been done in all of the areas.

Mr. Payne. OK, thank you.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Gary. We appreciate your being here. See,
if your name is just too complicated, I just call you by your first
name.

Mr. Bombardier. You did very well, Madam Chairman.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much for being with us.

I would like now to introduce our other two panelists who will
be joining us, Mr. Michael Wright and Mr. Steve Mills. Mr. Wright
is the president and chief executive officer of the African Wildlife
Foundation where he has served in this capacity since his appoint-
ment in July 1994. Mr. Wright came to the African Wildlife Foun-
dation from the Nature Conservancy where he headed a program
linking social and economic activities with biological diversity con-
servation.

Trained as an attorney, he had also served as western regional
counsel and is founder and director of the organization's inter-
national program. Previously, Mr. Wright was with World Wildlife
Fund, U.S., serving in various capacities, including senior fellow,
senior vice-president, vice-president and general counsel and he
will be followed by Mr. Steven Mills, Human Rights and Environ-
mental Campaign Director for the Sierra Club.

Mr. Mills shares responsibility for such issues as biodiversity
protection, multilateral development bank lending, human rights,
international trade, population and tropical forests. He leads the
Sierra Club's international outreach efforts, serves as the organiza-
tion's representative to the United Nations and serves as the coor-
dinator of the Sierra Club's Local Carrying Capacity Campaign, a
division of the International Population Program.

Prior to joining Sierra Club, Mr. Mills also worked for the Nature
Conservancy and the Overseas Education Fund International. He
has been recognized at the national and international level for his
work in conservation causes and his contributions to human rights.

We thank both of you for joining us today and sharing your in-
sight on this critical issue. We will begin with Mr. Wright.

STATEMENT OF MR. MICHAEL WRIGHT, PRESIDENT AND
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AFRICAN WILDLIFE FOUNDA-
TION

Mr. Wright. Thank you. Madam Chair.

I have a written statement that I

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. We will put it in the record.

Mr. Wright. Thank you very much.

I am the president, and have been for 2 years, of the African
Wildlife Foundation, an organization that has been around for
about 35 years. We believe we are the only U.S. charity that is fo-
cused solely on conservation on the continent of Africa. We have

about 50,000 members, a small headquarters staff here and the
majority of our staff is based in Africa. Historically, we have
worked in eastern Africa and increasingly in southern Africa. We
are not presently active in either central or west Africa.

There is considerable interest in a segment of the American pub-
lic concerning the environment in Africa, particularly focused on
wildlife. The remarkable migrations of wildlife in Africa, and the
megafauna — the large mammals of Africa — are unmatched any
place on the globe. And periodically the attention of the American
public focuses on the people of Africa, usually in the form of a crisis
or a disaster. These two are often not connected in people's minds.

The population of Africa, as the previous witness said, will dou-
ble in the next century. The density is quite a bit lower than many
of the developing parts of the world. But, nevertheless, the fragility
of the land and the ecosystems of Africa mean that many of those
people, estimated at 150 million, presently live in absolute pov-
erty— on less than a dollar a day.

Many of the rural poor are very dependent on Africa's biological
resources. It produces the food they eat, the fuel they use for cook-
ing, the medicine for health, and products to generate income. No
place on earth are human beings more dependent on the bounty of
nature directly for their survival than in Africa.

The link between human dependence and the Continent's natural
resources means that organizations such as the African Wildlife
Foundation, although we are focused primarily on wildlife, recog-
nize that there is a direct link between the question of poverty alle-
viation and human needs and the preservation of wildlife. We also
recognize that this is not merely a scientific concern. Addressing
these issues will require changes in government policy. It will be
critical to strengthen civil society. We need to build institutional
capacity and train natural resource staff. And we need to deal with
the wide range of general issues of poverty in the rural landscape —
poverty that is often characterized by a woman farmer struggling
to exist on an arid and very unforgiving landscape.

Unfortunately, the complexity of addressing the problems of Afri-
ca does not always generate the same interest as its wildlife spec-
tacle. But there is a changing attitude toward conservation that
has taken place in Africa in the last decade that focuses on work-
ing with communities to address issues of conservation.

In my prepared statement, I talked about the role of AID and
U.S. foreign assistance, which I believe is critical and has been ex-
tremely helpful on the Continent. AID has worked very effectively
with non-governmental organizations, both environmental and de-
velopmental, and I think it is a partnership that has been ex-
tremely successful on the ground — particularly in rural areas.

I also talk about the importance of national parks as the comer-
stone strategies to save Africa's wildlife. Parks are critical to the
preservation of wildlife in Africa and, contrary to what many peo-
ple believe, the number of parks and protected areas in Africa have
grown substantially since the end of the colonial era. This is not
an inheritance from the colonial past. This is something to which
the governments of Africa have remained strongly committed.

AWF has spent a lot of effort over the last 35 years training and
working with those institutions. We were fundamentally created to

build capacity of African institutions. We helped set up the Wildlife
College in Mweka, which has trained a generation of protected area
managers, and we continue to do that work today.

I would like to focus my testimony, though, on the issue of com-
munity-based conservation, which has been developing over the
last decade. African Wildlife Foundation has four projects under-
way right now that focus on this approach. All these have been
supported by USAID, I should add. USAID has been particularly
helpful in focusing on projects that link wildlife and natural re-
source consei^^ation with human needs, an area that is extremely
difficult to find funding for and understanding in the general pub-
lic. So AID has recognized the complex linkage of concerns and
played a very critical role in funding, not just for ourselves but
with a whole range of other NGrO's.

For example, one of these projects in Tanzania, AWF is working
with TANAPA, which is the Tanzanian Park Agency. TANAPA had
a traditional protected area approach, a very good system of parks,
but had a negative relationship with the communities outside the
parks. As a result of the last 4 years of work, TANAPA now has
a new policy that involves sharing revenue with communities out-
side parks. They are putting part of their budget into a fund for
these purposes. Every one of their 12 parks has a community con-
servation warden whose job it is to work as a liaison with commu-
nities outside the parks.

As a result, when a tourist goes into a park in Tanzania and
pays their entrance fee, part of those funds ultimately may dig a
well outside of the park; it may stock up a medical clinic; it may
build a school. And this is beginning to change the relationship be-
tween communities and the parks.

We have similar work in Kenya and several projects in Uganda,
including Bwindi National Park, where half of the world's moun-
tain gorillas exist. There is a tremendous amount of revenue
shared with communities around Bwindi as a result of that tourist
enterprise.

Each of these projects is somewhat different in its details, but
they share a common theme — the belief that local communities
must benefit from wildlife and from parks if we expect wildlife to
exist outside those parks.

Something that is not often discussed, is that an elephant in
your backyard is not always a desirable thing. There is an enor-
mous amount of destruction that can come from wildlife in Africa
and people have been tolerating it over the years while receiving
no benefit. As a result, the amount of wildlife that moves outside
of parks in its natural migrations is dropping drastically. In some
parts of Kenya in the last 20 years, they have lost 50 to 60 percent
of their wildlife. If we expect that wildlife to survive outside those
parks, we must make common cause with those communities.

In addition to the work AWF is doing, there are a number of
other similar projects. Some are private efforts, for example, a
project called the Cullman Wildlife Scheme in Tanzania. Probably
the best known of these other projects is the Campfire Program in
Zimbabwe. There is another program in Zambia. Community con-
servation is a very widespread and growing approach.

I should acknowledge that there is some controversy around
some of these programs. The Campfire Program, particularly, and
aid's support of it has been criticized by some of the animal rights
groups. Those groups are concerned because the benefits that flow
to communities through the campfire program come from utiliza-
tion and come from consumptive utilization, specifically hunting. In
the case of Campfire, it comes from the hunting of elephants. The
other programs, like the Cullman Program and the Zambia pro-
gram, do have a hunting base but they are not hunting elephants.
The work in Kenya, the work we are doing with TANAPA in Tan-
zania and our Uganda projects, do not involve consumptive use.
Thev involve nature tourism of the more traditional variety. But all
of these projects have a common central theme which is commu-
nities need to benefit. And, although there may be controversy
about utilization of wildlife, the simple fact is that in Zimbabwe,
in less than a decade, the land that is dedicated to wildlife con-
servation has grown from 12 percent, all in government reserves,
to over 35 percent of the country and almost all that new land that
is dedicated to wildlife is in private and communal lands. These are
private people — individuals and communities who have decided
that wildlife conservation is an important resource for their devel-
opment. This is a very significant change that has taken place.

Now, I would like to highlight a couple of general lessons that
we have learned from this wildlife experience and perhaps expand
it into a slightly larger set of issues. First, that conservation
projects, if they are to succeed, have to offer economic alternative
to people. We cannot simply ask people to conserve and tighten
their belt one more notch. There are no notches left in Africa's belt.

Second, we are not focused on the rain forest, which perhaps
makes us a bit of a heretical organization, we are particularly con-
cerned about savannahs and some of the arid lands of east and
southern Africa. So as we look at tropical forests, we should not
lose sight of the importance of the diversity on these arid lands
and, particularly, the degree of dependence the people living on
those lands have on that diversity for their survival. To protect
these arid lands, where often wildlife is the best use, we must in-
crease the production on the good agricultural lands and we must
make sure that there is an equitable distribution of the production
of those lands.

Third, that a modern and urban economy is going to be critical
to helping meet the needs of Africa's growing population. We are
not going to be able to meet human needs on the rural landscape
alone. So focusing on urban areas is important. We have not done
so and I think by early the next decade, none of us are going to
have the luxury of only focusing on the rural countryside. Africa's
urban areas are increasingly critical.

Fourth, sustainable resource development for the poor, and espe-
cially for poor women, is not a process of technology transfer but
an institutional and social process. This means that we must be in-
volved in issues of land rights and resource rights. This is not a
technical issue; it is a political and social issue. And increasingly
we are not hiring scientists, we are hiring anthropologists. There
is a real change in conservation thinking about the issues we are
trying to address. The issues of wildlife conservation are not of

wildlife per se, they are issues of people. They are issues of work-
ing with people.

And, finally, although we focus in the field, it is critical that
there be a policy environment that supports community
empowerment. Fundamental to all we do is a civil society that tol-
erates non-governmental organizations; that allows communities to
make decisions about their future; that gives them control over re-
sources.

So the division between democracy and environment, I think, in-
creasingly is an artificial distinction. It is a mistake to think of en-
vironment as a sort of separate category. There is a spectrum of
concerns that fiow from one of these programs to the other.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wright appears in the appendix.]

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much, Mr. Wright.

Mr. Mills.

Mr. Mills. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF MR. STEPHEN MILLS, HUMAN RIGHTS AND
ENVIRONMENTAL CAMPAIGN DIRECTOR, SIERRA CLUB

Mr. Mills. Grood afternoon. My name is Stephen Mills and I am
the Human Rights and Environment Campaign Director for the Si-
erra Club. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today.

I will concentrate my remarks today on West Africa; primarily on
Nigeria and the campaign the Sierra Club currently has there. I
will summarize my testimony but ask that the whole text be sub-
mitted for the record.

Ms. Ros-Lehtenen. We would be glad to.

Mr. Mills. This afternoon I would like to discuss, in part, the
role that the multinational oil company. Shell, has played in Nige-
ria and the collusive relationship with the brutal military dictator-
ship. I believe that this case provides a good example of the chal-
lenges faced by Africans across the Continent as they strive to de-
velop and manage their natural resources. It is also a story of a
heinous double standard utilized by one of the world's most recog-
nized multinational corporations. The Sierra Club aims to hold
Shell up as an example of how development should not occur in Af-
rica. I will close with some recommendations for preventing future
Nigerian tragedies.

Madam Chairman, in February 1994, in an Atlantic Monthly ar-
ticle entitled, 'The Coming Anarchy," Robert Kaplan wrote, 'The
cities of West Africa at night are some of the unsafest places in the
world." He wrote that, 'West Africa is becoming the symbol of
worldwide geographic, demographic, environmental and societal
stress in which criminal anarchy emerges as the real strategic dan-
ger." The intention of his article was to stimulate readers to under-
stand the environment for what it really is, the national security
issue of the early 21st century.

'The political and strategic impact of surging populations spread-
ing disease, deforestation and soil erosion, water pollution, air pol-
lution and rising sea levels in critical overcrowded regions," he
said, "will be the core foreign policy challenge from which most oth-
ers will ultimately emanate." Kaplan said that, 'To mention the en-
vironment or diminishing national resources in foreign policy cir-

cles was to meet a brick wall of skepticism or boredom. To make
matters worse, there are those who even believe that what Africa
really needs in order to give it an economic boost is, in fact, more
pollution."

In a January 1992 internal memo to World Bank chiefs, econo-
mist Lawrence Summers wrote, "I've always felt that the under-
populated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted. Just be-
tween you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging more
migration of dirty industries to the LDC," the lesser developed
countries? It is within this mix that we dwell when we consider Af-
rica's environmental future.

Fortunately, some of this mentality appears to be changing. In
April of this year, Secretary of State Warren Christopher, in a
speech at Stanford University, announced his intention to place en-
vironmental issues in the mainstream of American foreign policy.
He said that environmental forces transcend borders and oceans to
threaten directly the health, prosperity and jobs of American citi-
zens. He noted that addressing natural resource issues is fre-
quently critical to achieving political and economic stability and
pursuing our strategic goals around the world.

The Sierra Club commends Secretary Christopher for announcing
these new environmental initiatives and we look forward to assist-
ing in their implementation. We will urge, however, that the State
Department's new initiatives extend additionally to individual citi-
zens in their right to protect the environment, their right to clean
water, their right to clean air. This is because the Sierra Club be-
lieves that environmental rights are directly linked to human
rights. That everyone has a right to a clean and healthy environ-
ment.

We believe that no country can feign environmental awareness
when its citizens are forbidden to speak freely; when they are for-
bidden to assemble; or when they are persecuted and, as I will
later discuss, in some instances executed for protecting the environ-
ment. When environmentalists like Chico Mendes of Brazil are
murdered; or like Wangari Maathai of Kenya are harassed and
beaten; or like Ken Saro-Wiwa of Nigeria are hanged because of
their political environmental activism. The relationship between
human rights and the environment becomes all too clear.

Madam Chairman, I am certain that this subcommittee has been
following the recent events in Nigeria. I am sure this subcommit-
tee's members, like the rest of us, were shocked by the November
execution of playwright/environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa. So I am
sure that most of the information I am about to discuss will not
come as news to you.

I will tell you that it has been a most enlightening period for
members of the Sierra Club; that we have been active on inter-
national environmental issues for nearly 30 years now, domesti-
cally, as you know, for over 100. Our international work is mostly
on development bank lending and international trade issues. Never
has an international environmental issue so captivated our mem-
bers.

I suppose it is because the members of the Sierra Club across
America could so readily identify with the struggle of one of Nige-

ria's minority people, the Ogoni. Their desire for freedom from pol-
lution is something we all seek.

First, some background on Nigeria. It is one of the most populous
countries in Africa with a population of approximately 100 million.
One in every four Africans is Nigerian and the population there is
set to double in the next 25 years, while the country continues to
deplete its natural resources. Nigeria is one of the world's largest
exporters of oil, producing some two million barrels of oil each day,
bringing about ten billion a year to military leaders and accounting
for 97 percent of export revenues. Half of that total is pumped by
the oil company Shell, making the company, by far, the dominant
economic force in Nigeria. Yet Nigeria remains one of the poorest
countries, suffering from frequent paralyzing gas shortages.

In June 1993, General Ibrahim Babangida annulled Nigeria's
democratic Presidential election. Five months later. General Sani
Abacha seized power, abolished all democratic institutions, shut
down newspapers and jailed most of the opposition, including the
winner of the 1993 Presidential election, Moshood Abiola. Ms.
Kudirat Abiola, her husband's most vocal supporter, was assas-
sinated last month; many believe in yet another attempt to silence
an outspoken military critic.

The tragedy that occurred on November 10, 1995, however,
stunned the world. In the Nigerian city of Port Harcourt, writer
and environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa was hanged by the Nigerian
military. The military tribunal found Saro-Wiwa guilty of inciting
a riot in which four people were killed, even though he was miles
away in another town. Amnesty International's Human Rights
Watch, the Sierra Club and many other human rights and environ-
mental organizations declared the trial a sham, responding that
Saro-Wiwa had been convicted on trumped-up charges.

Of the 19 prosecution witnesses called, two of the most damaging
would later admit to having been bribed by the military govern-
ment. Within hours of the execution, the Nigerian military had de-
ployed some 4,000 troops throughout Ogoniland, beating anyone
caught mourning in public. School headmasters were arrested as a
warning not to discuss Saro-Wiwa in the classroom. Pastors were
arrested because they prayed for Ken Saro-Wiwa.

Ken Saro-Wiwa was the president of the movement for the sur-
vival of the Ogoni people, or MOSOP, a volunteer-based democratic
organization governed not unlike the Sierra Club. MOSOP was or-
ganized as a response to the environmental devastation which has
occurred in Ogoni as a result of 38 years of oil exploitation. Ogoni
demands include an end to the pollution, primarily by the oil spills
and gas flares of Royal Dutch Shell. The Ogoni are also demanding
a share of the oil revenues from their land.

Since 1958, Royal Dutch Shell has extracted some $30 billion
worth of oil from the lands of the Ogoni people. While royalties of
these sales fill the coffers of the Nigerian military, the rich farm-
land of Ogoni has been laid waste by oil spills and the venting of
toxic gases. Meanwhile, the Ogoni lack running water, electricity,
adequate schools or health care.

In Nigeria, there are few or no requirements to conduct environ-
mental impact studies, recycle oil waste or lay subterranean oil
pipes instead of cheaper above-ground pipes. Waste oil is hap-

hazardly buried in makeshift pits only to bubble again to the sur-
face during rainy season.

Madam Chairman, you asked that I address the issue of property
rights in my testimony. Well, in 1978, the military declared all
land in Nigeria the property of the Federal Government. This had
the effect of freeing the oil companies from having to negotiate with
the locals, whose property included vast oil reserves. Gas flaring in
Ogoni villages had destroyed wildlife, plant life, poisoned the air
and water, left residents half-deaf and prone to respiratory dis-
eases. According to the U.N. Conference on Environment Develop-
ment, the nearly four decades of oil extraction in the Niger Delta
from the coastal rain forest and main growth habitat has left it the
most endangered river delta in the world.

In May, many of the claims of environmentalists against Shell
were vindicated. Bopp van Dessel, Shell's former head of environ-
mental studies, revealed in a British television interview that the
company broke its own rules and international standards and
failed to respond to his warnings. "Wherever I went, I could see
that Shell was not operating their facilities properly," van Dessel
said. "They were not meeting their own standards. They were not
meeting international standards. Any Shell site that I saw was pol-
luted. Any terminal that I saw was polluted."

It was in response to this devastation, this exploitation, that in
1990 Ken Saro-Wiwa and other Ogoni leaders formed the move-
ment for the survival of the Ogoni people. On January 4, Saro-
Wiwa drew international attention to their cause by leading a
peaceful demonstration, a protest march of 300,000 people through-
out Ogoniland. Again, that is 300,000 in a community of 500,000.
The resistance has been met with a repression.

In May 1994, the Nigerian Internal Security Task Force attacked
and virtually destroyed over 30 Ogoni villages, killing more than
100 people and arresting hundreds more. In the years since
MOSOP was founded, more than a thousand Ogoni have been
killed during clashes with the Nigerian Military Police.

The Ogoni are a peaceful people. To the best of our knowledge,
there have been no protest-related deaths of anyone with Shell or
the Nigerian military.

More than 90 percent of Nigeria's farm revenue comes from oil
exports, as I said. Nearly 50 percent of this oil is exported to the
United States. Americans are the largest consumers of Nigerian oil,
yet Nigerian oil represents only 3V2 percent of America's total oil
consumption. It is both economically possible and morally impera-
tive that we stop our consumption of the oil that fuels the current
regime.

Shell makes approximately $200 million a year in profits in Ni-
geria and has begun work on a $4-billion natural gas joint venture
with the military. An international embargo of Nigerian oil would
hurt the country's generals who pocket most of the $10-billion oil
revenue. A boycott would hold Shell accountable for its environ-
mental abuses and tolerance of injustice.

conform to U.S. standards while operating there, and paid com-
pensation to the peoples

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Mr. Mills, if we could ask you to wrap it up.
Thank you.

Mr. Mills. I will just finish by saying that in the time we have
been working on this, we have all been impressed with the great
work being done now by Assistant Secretary of State, John
Shattuck. We are aware that Nigeria is now a top priority of his
office and appreciate his willingness to work with him.

The Sierra Club is a strong supporter of H.R. 2697, the Nigerian
Democracy Act, as sponsored by Congressman Payne. I understand
that Congressman Payne is eager to have hearings on the bill and
we encourage your committee to schedule them as soon as possible.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. We have had many hearings on the issue of
human rights in Africa. We have had many hearings on Nigeria,
but we are here to talk about another issue.

Mr. Mills. I will conclude by saying that Nigeria's human rights
and environmental crisis can, we believe, only be solved together.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mills appears in the appendix. 1

Ms. Ros-Lehtenen. Thank you.

Thank you very much, gentlemen.

If I could ask you what you believe are the three highest prior-
ities for our investment in environmental protection and restora-
tion in your many years of experience in Africa environmental is-
sues, if you could focus in on that. If you were to make rec-
ommendations to our government, what would you say would be
the three highest priorities for our tax dollars to go into, whether
it is rural, agricultural kind of concerns; urban environmental pro-
tection programs. What kind of recommendations would you make?
And we are speaking about environmental priorities here.

Mr. Wright.

Mr. Wright. I think, ultimately, the conservation and environ-
mental issues of Africa are going to have to be solved by Africans.
So I think we have to start at the top and say that building African
institutions through training and through the policies that em-
power them to make the right decisions. So policy change, helping
African Governments re-think their environmental policy, and
helping train the Africans that are going to carry out those policies
has got to be very high, if not top of the list.

I think a second one is the one I mentioned at the end and I
think it has come up in several cases which is the question of de-
mocracy and building civil society in all its aspects. One of the iro-
nies that we found in particularly Latin America but also in Asia
is when they started moving toward democracy and you started
having more citizen activism, there was some concern on the part
of environmentalists that citizen demands to open up lands, open
up parks for resources was actually going to be a threat to the en-
vironment and we found exactly the opposite. The explosion of a
non-governmental movement and a democratic society holding gov-
ernments accountable is really fundamental to environment. So I
think we, in a way, want to focus the democracy more into the
NGO and environmental area. Perhaps a little more emphasis on
that. And I think that applies to us as well.

I think continuing population programs, however unpopular they
might be within some quarters, is fundamental and that, I think,
primarily in the context of women and women's health. Population
in the sense of the social needs of communities to deal with popu-
lation growth and the reasons people have children, not just a more
top down authoritarian or technical solution would be the three.
Those would be the three things I would

Ms. Ros-Lehtinp:n. Thank you.

Mr. Mills.

Mr. MiLi^. I would support what Mr. Wright says. I would just
add that in my meetings, and I meet quite often with African envi-
ronmentalists, one thing they often say to me is they do not really
feel they have anyone, for instance, in the U.S. embassy they can
turn to when they need help with environmental protection. It is
not really a priority there. Often, as you know, it is hard for Afri-
can individuals and groups to do the kind of work that Sierra Club
would do in their country. So I would again ask for help for the
people to be able to organize and not be harassed.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you.

Mr. Hastings.

Oh, he is gone.

Mr. Johnston.

Mr. Johnston. Thank you. Madam Chair.

Mr. Mills, the Chair is right when she points out that we are
pretty knowledgeable of the human rights abuses in Nigeria and I
am sure Mr. Payne will address that a little more. We were in Ni-
geria 18 months ago. We met with Ken Saro-Wiwa's brother. We
met with Abiola — specifically, Mr. Payne met with Abacha. Met
with Abiola's wife, the one who was murdered.

In your testimony on page five, which you skipped over and
which you alluded to later, you say, "The Sierra Club has come to
believe that a boycott of Shell Oil and an embargo of Nigerian oil
exports are the best way to stop the environmental and human
rights abuses in Nigeria." And then on page eight, you pick it up
again after the execution of the Ogonis.

I have not heard anything domestically about a boycott by your
club against Shell Oil. Has it been well-publicized?

Mr. Mills. I am doing my best. This is the first time that the
Sierra Club has adopted a national boycott like this and

Mr. Johnston. When, specifically, was that date that you had a
boycott against Shell Oil?

Mr. Mills. The board adopted the resolution 9 days after his
execution, which

Mr. Johnston. OK.

Let me go back. Mr. Payne and I asked for a report from the
GAO on the impact of an embargo by the United States on oil from
Nigeria. Have you had an opportunity to read that report?

Mr. Mills. No, sir, I have not.

Mr. Johnston. OK.

I would strongly recommend that you look at it.

Mr. Mills. I will.

Mr. Johnston. I think you have to admit you are dealing with
friendly people here. But that report came back — and correct me —
we would be shooting ourselves in the foot. Almost, by trans-

shipment of this oil through another country, and it would hurt us
more than it would help us.

Is Sierra involved in any other country in Africa?

Mr. Mills. I have worked, over a number of years, with different
African countries, primarily in Kenya, with Kenya's Green Belt
Movement.

Mr. Johnston. And what were your results there?

Mr. Mills. Well, we were able to secure the release of Dr.
Maathai when she was being harassed and beaten by the Kenyan
Government.

I think the best thing that ever happened to President Moi was
General Sani Abacha. It has taken a lot of the spotlight off him.

But I think that her offices have just moved out of her home,
where they were forced to operate for a long time. So we have had
some successes.

Mr. Johnston. Mr. Wright, have you been to Tanzania?

Mr. Wright. Yes, I have. Not extensively, though.

Mr. Johnston. When was your last trip there?

Mr. Wright. About a year and a half ago.

Mr. Johnston. Well, you were there with the refugees in the
western

Mr. Wright. I did not get up to that area.

Mr. Johnston. You did not?

Mr. Wright. No.

Mr. Johnston. OK.

Yes, that is all I have, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, Mr. Johnston.

Don?

Mr. Payne, Yes. I have a question, Mr. Wright. In regard to wild-
life, the question of elephants, for example, and every year a group
of Zimbabweans come to meet with me about their problem with
elephants. They say they have more elephants than people and
they claim they are being overrun and want to sort of have a dis-
pensation as relates to cropping the herds and selling the tusk. I
certainly have listened, but not been supportive of their request.

What is your opinion on that situation?

Mr. Johnston. Excuse me. Could you yield just a second?

Mr. Payne. Yes.

Mr. Johnston. As I recall, isn't that the country that has a huge
inventory of ivory that is sitting there and all they want to do is
put it on the world market and just sell it because it is just sitting
in warehouses?

Mr. Payne. Yes, right. That is true. They do. And that is their
main object right now. They do have a lot of them running around,
they claim. And, of course, they move it out, then there may be less
of them running around.

But what would your assessment of the situation be?

Mr. Wright. Well, it is an issue that comes up and it is a very
tough issue because it divides different parts of Africa. In a sense,
Zimbabwe is being punished for the failure of governments else-
where to protect their elephants. And so they have a claim of
equitability that is hard not to respond to. Zimbabwe has done a
good job protecting their elephants. They have done a remarkable
job throughout southern Africa. So the southern African countries

are saying they need to use this resource and particularly the
stockpiles of the resource. They come periodicf.lly to make their
case.

AWF's symbol is the elephant and our members would clearly
rather have elephants on the hoof than any other way. The prob-
lem we have is whether you can open up a commercial trade in
ivory, even a limited commercial trade, without causing an out-
break of poaching elsewhere on the Continent? What turned things
around at the CITES meeting 2 years ago when South Africa pro-
posed a very limited trade? And South Africa was talking not even
of a trade in ivory, they were talking about a trade in meat and
hides and nobody poaches an elephant for its hide, so it was a very,
very narrow exception. Yet, the governments in Tanzania and
Uganda and Kenya said, "Just even the hint that we are going to
re-open commercial trade in any way is going to be sufficient for
us to start losing the elephants outside the protected areas because
of the mere hint of opening up commercial trade."

And the problem you have is an enormously valuable resource
that is out in the landscape. How do you protect it? And the com-
ment somebody made, this is not just an African problem. If the
deer in Scotland all had hundred dollar bills on their antlers run-
ning around, how many deer would there be in Scotland?

So, I mean, this is the dilemma that we are in and I am very
sympathetic to the Zimbabwean position because they have done a
good job and yet the view we have had to take is we simply cannot
lose the elephants in three-quarters of the Continent to help them
off the hook. It is a problem.

They are still allowed to do trophy hunting, which is not gen-
erally that well known. It seems contradictory that, on the one
hand, you cannot have commercial trade but a hunter can go in
and shoot a trophy elephant. They make as much money from the
very small number of elephants killed for trophy hunting as they
did from the whole ivory trade at a commercial level. So, although
their money is half what it used to be, it is not insignificant.

And there is no question that this is not causing a problem else-
where. And I think at the end of the day, our view would be, al-
though we do not like trophy hunting, that that is a legitimate use.
It is enormously valuable for communities and we can support
their continuing that exception. But I think we would probably
have to oppose the introduction of commercial trade unless we can
address the problems elsewhere on the Continent.

That is kind of a roundabout answer, but it is not an easy issue.

Mr. Payne. Right. Yes, I know that in Kenya about 2 or 3 years
ago, they had a burning of tusks. I think it was more of a P.R.
piece. They wanted to get some U.S. airplanes or something so they
were showing they were against poaching.

Let me, since we are going to have to leave, let me ask Mr. Mills,
has there been any work done by the Sierra Club — at a recent
meeting of the European Parliament that was held here last week,
I raised the question of an oil boycott to the Dutch people who were
there, parliamentarians, and they indicated that they had raised
the issue in their country but it is not being raised very strongly.
And just similar to the timber issue with the French, they raised
it very quietly but no one seems to hear them.

Has there been any work done in the Netherlands, where Shell
seems to have their world headquarters?

Mr. Mills. Yes, sir. There is quite a bit of work being done with
the environmental groups there. It is still quite an issue, I under-
stand, and I just spoke with Dr. Owens Wiwa. Last week, he was
in the Netherlands and had a record turn-out for a visit of his. So
it is still an issue and I believe it is still being talked about.

As far as European organizations and sanctions, I just read today
that the British are still having a bit of a problem with it, pri-
marily because British Airways has such a lock on flights to Africa.

Mr. Payne. Well, I certainly appreciate your support for the leg-
islation. We will continue to — and we are getting co-sponsors by the
day. I think we are going to have maybe over a hundred co-spon-
sors right now and an overwhelming majority, maybe 90-plus per-
cent, of the Congressional Black Caucus supports the legislation.

There has been some question about whether it was unanimous.
We have three members that have taken another position. But the
other 35 or so strongly support it and we are hoping that our State
Department and Administration, I think they have been too tame.
I agree with you. I do not think they should have sent Mr.
Carrington, the Ambassador, back to Nigeria. There is a move afoot
to attempt to allow some Nigerian leaders to come in to discuss a
transition, but I strongly oppose that as they can just do it by let-
ting some people out of prison if they just want to show good faith.

So I certainly appreciate the support and the fine work that both
of your organizations are doing and thank you.

I give back the balance of my time.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, Mr. Payne.

Just a quick question. What are you doing with international or-
ganizations or other countries, either within Africa or outside of Af-
rica, to solve what you would see as a regional problem affecting
the environmental concerns of an area? Other organizations, do you
have any kind of consortium to try to put international pressure,
either through organizations like the United Nations, et cetera, to
try to help force the issue to try to have these countries clean up
the problems tied to the environmental concerns?

Mr. Wright. Well, we are two wings of the environmental move-
ment testifying here. AWF is not an activist organization. We are
really a technical assistance organization more than an activist
one. So we do participate in some consortiums. There is a group of
three international organizations working in the Rwanda/eastern
Zaire area. Mostly our concern is the gorillas in the rain forest and
park. But we are working with the U.N. agencies on the refugee
question. There are interactions concerning the environmental im-
plications of the refugee situation. But ours is not a political as
much as a technical role. We are not sort of a pressure group in
that sense.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. OK

Mr. MlLl^. We do network with environmental groups at U.N.
meetings and such. We are not looking to open up Sierra Club of-
fices abroad as much as we are looking to export some of our orga-
nizing techniques and work with some indigenous groups to help
them fight environmental problems in their countries like we have
done here. So we are working with groups.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinp:n. Great.

Well, thank you so much, gentlemen, for being with us today and
sharing your insight. Thank you.
The subcommittee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:25 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned. I

APPENDIX

STATEMENT OF GARY BOMBARDIER

DEPUTY ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR

BUREAU FOR AFRICA

U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

JULY 17, 1996

Thank you, Madam Chair, for this opportunity to discuss the environmental challenges
facing Africa and the role the U.S. Agency for International Development (US AID) is playing
in helping Africans to address those challenges.

The issues you have asked us to address today are large and diverse, just like Africa
itself. I will focus primarily on five major points that I believe are particularly salient:

• First, the deterioration of Africa's environment poses a fundamental challenge to its
economies, to the well-being of its people, and in important respects to the global
community as a whole.

• In Africa, the environment and poverty are inextricably linked. It is impossible to
address one of these issues without addressing the other.

• While the enviroimient is still deteriorating in many places in Africa, there has been
progress and there are many signs that give hope for a better future.

• The most impressive development during the last decade has been that Africans
themselves increasingly understand the importance of the environment and are making
a growing commitment to taking the actions necessary to address these challenges.

1
(25)

• Finally, US AID has a focused strategy for addressing environmental problems in Africa.
We are working closely with Africans and our partners to implement that strategy and
we are achieving results. However, much remains to be done.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGE

Madam Chair, I could begin my testimony this afternoon by reciting a long litany of
environmental challenges that Africa faces and by sharing some numbers with you that are
chilling. I hope you will forgive me if I avoid that and simply come to the bottom line. Africa
is a large continent with a population rapidly approaching 600 million people. Think of an
environmental challenge — any environmental challenge — and it is a challenge facing Africa
today.

For example, we know that the population of Africa is likely to double by 2020. We
know that approximately 80 percent of Africa's people depend upon farming in one form or
another for their livelihood, and that because of growing population pressures they are being
pushed on to increasingly marginal lands. We know that soil erosion and soil degradation are
already serious problems in Africa, reducing its capacity to feed its people. And thus we know
that in one possible future Africa could be dealing with a rapidly expanding population that
desperately seeks to eke out existence on lands that are more and more marginal.

For some countries, the future is now. Certainly, conflict contributed to the massive
famines that we witnessed in Ethiopia and Sudan in the mid-1980s, killing hundreds of
thousands of people.

But today, at peace, Ethiopia continues to run annual food deficits of between

500,000 and 1 ,000,000 metric tons even in good years, largely because it failed to begin
addressing the problems associated with rapid population growth twenty years ago.

Perhaps this seems a distant concern to those of us living here in the comfort of the
United States. But can we as easily ignore some of the other environmental challenges
Africa faces?

In many African countries, for example, we know that forest lands have been
substantially degraded; and today, the major remaining tropical rain forest in Africa, the
Congo Basin, is under threat.

The future of the Congo Basin is obviously important to the 65 million people who
live there. But what happens in the Congo Basin will affect us as well because it is the
second largest tropical rain forest in the world. Tropical forests serve as important
reservoirs of carbon; if destroyed, they will release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,
which will almost certainly contribute to global climate change. And we will not be able to
escape those changes here in the United States.

Let me cite another example. We know that biodiversity in Africa is increasingly
threatened. What does the loss of biodiversity mean?

At one level, it means that animal and valuable plant species are disappearing. But
perhaps this definition is too abstract to engage us. At a more human level, it could mean
the loss of wildlife resources that give us so much pleasure, such as the forest elephants,
gorillas and chimpanzees.

And perhaps this is a loss we could live with if we had to — though it would be much
harder for Africans themselves to live with the loss of tourism revenues that we bring into

their countries to view these animals.

But the truth is that we do not know the full range of plant and animal species that
would be lost if biodiversity in the rainforests of the Congo Basin and Madagascar is
destroyed. And thus we cannot begin to estimate the potential scientific advances in
medicine, agriculture and other fields that would be lost to the world as a whole if
Madagascar loses its battle.

We are all familiar with the rosy periwinkle, a plant native to Madagascar, that was
imported into the United States at the turn of the century and that has played a critical role in
the fight against childhood leukemia. How many other rosy periwinkles are being lost
through deforestation and environmental devastation?

In short, the environmental challenges in the Congo Basin, Madagascar and Africa as
a whole are serious, not just for Africa but for all of us.

What are the root causes of these problems? Certainly, rapid population growth,
urbanization, the movement of people resulting from the lack of economic opportunity, and
civil strife have all placed increasing pressure on an already fragile ecosystem. Poverty itself
is a cause. But underlying these are a series of key problems affecting the way people use
resources:

• Solutions often seem to require too much time to those in immediate need. An
African woman who needs to feed her children tonight is unlikely to pay much
attention to the long-term consequences associated with removing wood from the land.

• Institutions involved with the environment have often been both overly directive and
ineffective. Too much attention was given to building fences and national parks while

too little was paid to the needs of local communities in which the parks and fences
were located. Forest and park departments typically viewed their job as one of
enforcement, keeping people away from resources, collecting fines, and punishing
offenders.

• Economic incentives often promote the short-term exploitation of resources. In
Madagascar, for example, the Forestry Department used to charge the same fee for
cutting pine trees as for harvesting the rare Palisandra — a tree that would take a
century to regenerate. In the Sahel, natural woodlands use to be cleared for the short-
term cropping of peanuts or millet, which the depleted soil was unable to sustain for
more than a few years.

• Land tenure regimes and the lack of local authority often limit the degree to which
people are willing to manage resources wisely and sustainably. Too often people do
not have secure use rights to land and trees and thus lack the incentive to use such
resources responsibly.

• Finally, the environment in Africa is so diverse and complex that single-issue
solutions put forward by donors and governments can often lead to confusion, wasted
resources, and even more deterioration.

These problems are exacerbated by the impacts of conflict. The environmental
consequences of conflict in the Horn of Africa, in Angola and Mozambique, and in Liberia
cannot be understated. At the same time, scarcities of land and other resources often are
fundamental causes of conflict. These factors have contributed directly to the on-going
tensions in Rwanda and Burundi.

That is why it is so important to understand that the future of the environment and
economic prosperity are inextricably intertwined in Africa.

HOPEFUL SIGNS OF AN ALTERNATIVE FUTURE

Yet not all is negative in Africa. There are many examples where Africans are taking
control of their future by taking control of their environment. Increased economic growth,
improved governance, and coordinated strategic planning have been shown to go hand in
hand with the wiser use of enviroimiental resources. In countries as diverse as Uganda,
Madagascar, Mali, South Africa and Zimbabwe, major changes are taking place both at the
local and national levels that hold considerable promise.

While problems differ, the recipes for environmental progress share certain traits in
common:

• Throughout Africa there are experiments in turning over authority for natural
resources to local users through resource tenure reform and democratization, often
with significant results. Notable examples include efforts now underway in
Madagascar, Zimbabwe and the Sahel. By giving local people a stake in managing
their natural resources, we are beginning to see that Africans can wisely balance their
immediate needs with the long-term needs of their children.

• Throughout Africa there is a rethinking of the respective roles of the public sector and
private citizens. South Africa, Mali and Senegal have been particularly impressive.
No longer is the environment simply a responsibility of government. It is the
responsibility of every citizen. For instance, Govenmient Forestry Agents in

Senegal and Mali now act in partnership with communities — providing technical
support instead of acting as policemen. As a consequence, communities and
government share responsibility for forest management, and the forest resources are
being sustained.
• Throughout Africa there have been singular examples of enhanced coordination
between donors, PVOs, host country govermnents and local communities to address
the most critical problems facing the environment. For instance, over the last ten
years in Lesotho, community management of rangelands has improved range quality
over more than 100,000 hectares as a result of strong coordination and collaboration
between government, donors, and local groups. Madagascar, Uganda and the Congo
Basin region represent other good examples where results are being achieved.
There is clearly no certainty that the hopeful signs we are seeing today will become
the rule rather than the exception. CivU strife, natural disasters, and continued rapid
population growth all conspire against Africa. Poverty itself also puts pressure on the
environment, as does the uncontrolled export of timber or the mining of nationally or
globally important resources for short-term gain.

Yet, it is clear that Africa today is a vastly different continent than it was a decade
ago when it comes to an understanding of the importance of the environment and a
commitment to addressing the challenges Africa faces.

One example of this can be seen in the adoption of National Environmental Action
Plans (NEAPs) by African nations. Today more than 40 African countries have adopted or
are in the process of adopting such plans. NEAPs are strategic frameworks within which

environment and sustainable development issues are identified and prioritized.

In the best of cases, such as Madagascar, they are developed in highly participatory
ways, set specific goals and objectives, establish priorities for the use of limited funds, and
become a mechanism through which donors, host governments and the people of Africa
themselves jointly collaborate in attacking environmental problems. In Madagascar, the
NEAP successfully pulls together nearly $200 million in donor and country programs,
designed around common objectives to maintain the country's unique flora and fauna, while
promoting more sustainable economic growth for the Malagasy.

To be effective, of course, NEAPs and other environmental planning tools must be
more than a plan. They must be a process, continually updated and continuously
implemented. And they must involve everyone. In Madagascar, for example, PVOs, NGOs
and local communities are playing major roles in implementing the NEAP.

NEAPS are just one example of the growing commitment of Africans to addressing
the environmental challenges they face. There are many others as well. Environmental
education is being introduced to schools, for example. There are also growing numbers of
local advocacy groups — increasingly Africans themselves are demanding improved
environmental management.

A FOCUSED STRATEGY

And USAID is playing an important role in this effort as well. The creation of the
Development Fund for Africa in 1987 was a signal event. That legislation directed USAID
"to help the poor majority of men and women in sub-Saharan Africa to participate in a

process of long-term development through economic growth that is equitable, participatory,
envirorunentally sustainable, and self-reliant." It further emphasized our responsibility to
support efforts aimed at "maintaining and restoring the renewable natural resource base ...."

Since 1987 the Africa Bureau has been implementing its environmental programs
through our Plan for Natural Resources Management. This plan focuses our efforts in three
key areas: tropical forestry, sustainable agriculture, and biodiversity. We firmly believe that
the way to maximize our impact is by focusing scarce resources on a limited range of issues.
These are also areas where we believe that we have a comparative advantage among the
donoi agencies.

At the same time, we also support broad strategic processes that help Africans
identify and address a wide range of environmental problems, including problems not directly
supported by US AID'S limited funding, such as air and water quality, or industrial and
petroleum-related pollution. In Uganda, for example, USAID provided funds for the NEAP
process. USAID then funded portions of the NEAP related to biodiversity, while other
donors funded elements of the plan such as urban and industrial pollution which are not part
of our focused strategy.

There are two points that I would like to stress in particular with regard to our
environmental efforts. First, like physicians, we take very seriously the injunction to do no
harm. Since the 1970s USAID has been the lead development agency worldwide in
incorporating environmental procedures into everything we fund. We are required under
Agency environmental procedures, 22CFR Part 216 (commonly referred to as "Regulation
216") to review every project designed within the Agency for potential environmental

impacts.

These "Initial Environmental Examinations" (lEEs) constitute a serious undertaking.
In some cases they may be brief; in other cases, if we have reason to believe that a particular
activity could pose environmental issues, we conduct a full Environmental Assessment,
which may require substantial analysis. And, most importantly, when we discover possible
unintended environmental impacts, we change our program designs — by adding
environmental monitoring components to agricultural programs that might result in expanded
use of chemical fertilizers, for example.

But this commitment is far more than regulatory. Over the last twenty years, our
entire approach to development has evolved in a way designed to integrate environmental
sustainability and safety into everything we do. We have made a special effort to respond to
the environmental provisions of the DFA, especially in the area of institutional and policy
reform. Programs designed by us in these areas now include specific provisions to protect
long-term environmental interests from possible negative consequences. For instance, in
Madagascar, we have helped the government to develop policies and regulations aimed at
controlling and mitigating environmental damage from urban and industrial growth, and from
pesticide use.

A second key element of our work in Africa is to focus on the direct links between
the environment and economic growth, particularly as it affects the rural poor — the bulk of
the continent's population. We know we can make a difference because we are already
doing so.

In Mali, Francois Coulibali and his family have doubled — in some cases tripled —

yields on their land while enhancing its capacity to continue producing in the future. They
have done this through using a range of improved practices and techniques, including water
management techniques, use of agroforestry practices, application of manure and other
organic inputs, and other approaches. They have done so with our help; more importantly,
they have done so for well over a decade now. And thousands of their neighbors have
adopted similar practices, to the benefit of both the people and the environment.

WHAT WE DO

In order to implement US AID" s strategy we fund a variety of activities, largely through our
field missions in Africa. For example, we work with local governments to reform policies
and to change the incentives affecting the use of natural resources. In contrast to ten to
fifteen years ago when USAID funded technically focussed environmental projects, we now
concentrate many of our resources on programs aimed at helping host countries get the
conditions right for less destructive environmental practices. This is accomplished through a
combination of technical assistance, applied research, and targeted conditionality. These
reforms include changing tenure systems, decentralizing enterprises, reforming laws
controlling NGOs and regulations affecting the control over revenue at the local level.
We also improve the technical and managerial capacity of both public and private entities —
such as district councils, parks departments, NGOs — to implement environmental programs.
This includes training in a wide variety of environmental fields, as well as expertise in
accounting and fmancial management. Additionally we provide grants to both US-based and
local PVOs which work throughout Africa with local people to improve environmental

practices. And we support applied technical research to develop and test new approaches.

LESSONS LEARNED

We now have enough experience as an Agency to know what works. Some of the
key lessons learned include:

• The importance of an enabling environment that is environmentally friendly. If laws,
policies, and incentives are not environmentally sensitive, desired results are unlikely.
That is why we have actively supported and funded the adoption of NEAPs and other
environmental strategies, for example. These strategic frameworks have often served
to identify the impediments to environmental sustainability and then to identify the
specific changes needed.

• The need for collaborative strategic planning is also clear. None of the problems we
have discussed today can be resolved if those involved in attempting to address them
fail to cooperate. Nor will solutions be sustainable unless they reflect priorities
established by Africans themselves. As donor resources decline, coordination
becomes even more critical for success. USAID currently works closely with the
World Bank, UN Agencies and bilateral donors in implementing environmental
programs in Africa.

• Agriculturalists and environmentalists must work together, in recognition that the
rural dweller often makes no clear distinction between the environment, agriculture,
forestry or pasture. In Mali, over 18,000 farmers are improving their agricultural

productivity by investing in new natural resource management practices. These
farmers want to increase income and reduce risk of drought, and understand that to do
this they must both improve agricultural practices and the natural resource base.

• The critical importance of secure land and tree tenure. Incentives make a difference.
A farmer who does not have secure use rights to the land she tills and who could be
forced off of it tomorrow has little incentive to invest in the future. A community
that does not benefit from the wildlife with which it must coexist will have no stake in
the future of that wildUfe.

• Empowering people makes a difference. In the Sahel, for example, the Forest Codes
have been changed to give local communities control over forest resources, resulting
in substantially better management and increased income to the local people.
Community-based natural resource management is often the summation of many of

these other approaches. The success of this approach — making local peoples responsible
and accountable for those resources they use — has been remarkable in a wide range of
otherwise disparate countries, such as Lesotho, Mali, Senegal, Madagascar, and Zimbabwe.

In short, the environment is a key to maintaining and increasing economic
productivity; but people will only invest in preserving the environment if they recognize its
economic value. If the rural poor cannot see a benefit to conserving wildlife, land, and other
resources, there will never be enough fences or laws to stop the enviiormiental destruction.

CONCLUSION

As I said. Madam Chair, the challenges are great and the outcome is by no means

certain. Much remains to be done. We are faced with a dilemma. The types of changes we
are working toward require time. At the same time, we are conscious that time is limited
and that we cannot take forever.

What I can tell you for certain is that the process, however slow it may seem, does
pay off. And that is why it is so important to stay the course — to remain engaged with
Africa as it makes the transition to a more environmentally sustainable and productive future.

One final point, Madam Chair. The environment cannot be divorced from population
growth and migration, from poverty or the absence of governments that are democratically
chosen and accountable, from those things that are fundamental to human well-being, such as
access to health services and educational opportunities. While it is tempting to think that we
can deal with each of these problems in isolation, they are in fact interrelated. What is
ultimately required of all of us is a commitment to broad-based sustainable development, the
type of approach we have been pursuing under the Development Fund for Africa and one
which we believe should continue to drive our activities in the future.

Thank you.

Africa's Environment^ The Final Frontier

Statement of R. Michael Wright

President
The African Wildlife Foundation

before the

Sub-Committee on Africa
House Committee on International Relations

July 17, 1996

MADAME Chair, members of the sub-committee, thank you for the opportunity to present the
testimony of the African Wildlife Foundation on African environmental and natural resource
issues.

I am R. Michael Wright, President of the African Wildlife Foundation. African Wildlife
Foundation has existed for 35 years, and is the only U.S. -based conservation organization focused
solely on the conservation and protection of wildlife on the continent. We have 50,000 members
in the United States. African Wildlife Foundation is headquartered in Washington, DC, with the
majority of our staff based in Africa. Historically we have worked in east Africa, but in recent
years have extended our activity, contacts and interactions with colleagues to southern Africa.

There is much interest among the American public in the state of Africa's environment. Africa's
majestic migrations and megafauna are among the remarkable wildlife spectacles left in the world.
In addition, there has been growing recognition of the importance of the biological diversity of
Africa's tropical forests. On the one hand, the African population is projected to exceed one
billion by the year 2025. But Africa's human population density is still substantially below that of
much of the developing world. It includes 150 million people living in acute poverty—barely $1
per day. In sub-Saharan Africa biological resources, particularly for Africa's rural poor, produce
the food that is eaten, the fuel for cooking, the medicine for health, and the products that generate
essential income.

Because of the link between human dependence and the continent's natural resources, African
Wildlife Foundation recognizes that addressing issues of the environment in Africa is not a narrow
scientific concern — it will require modified government policy — including strengthening civil
society, building the institutional capacity and training of the natural resource staff, and addressing
the fiindamental problems of poverty in the rural landscape—poverty which often has the face of a
female farmer eking out a living from an arid and unforgiving landscape.

The complexity of solutions to Afiica's environmental challenge unfortunately does not draw the
same degree of immediate public understanding as does the wildlife in all its wonder.

The rural population of Africa is more dependent on the natural resource base and its biodiversity
than any other region of the world. Subsistence and commercial agriculture, livestock production,
nature tourism, logging and fisheries account for the majority of employment, economic output
and export earnings. Natural resource conservation to a rural subsistence farmer does not mean
large mammals and parks, but utilization and human survival Recognizing this reality, recent
change in approaches to conservation are underway in Africa. There is much that must be
protected on the continent, and if we are able to develop working strategies that link rural
communities with conservation, the African Wildlife Foundation believes much can be conserved
without sacrificing the need, indeed the imperative, for improving the quality of life of the people
of Africa.

U.S. A.I.D. AND NGO PARTNERSHIPS

African Wildlife Foundation was created with the goal of building the capacity of African
institutions and individuals to manage their natural resource base—hence we are firmly rooted in
rural areas. A number of our projects, particularly those focused on linking natural resource
protection with poverty alleviation, have been supported by the U.S. Agency for International
Development (U.S. AID.). I would like to focus my testimony, in part on the role of U.S.
foreign assistance and U.S. AID. as an important force in supporting programs that deal with the
link between Africa's environment and human needs.

In Africa, environmental efforts supported by U.S. foreign assistance focused on a range of
protected area activities, and in many cases have relied on the NGO (non-governmental
organizations) to implement these programs. Examples include Wildlife Conservation Society's
(WCS) work to preserve the biologically rich Korup National Park in Cameroon, to World
Wildlife Fund's (WWF) "Life" project working with communities in Namibia, to support of local
indigenous NGO's and the government of Zimbabwe on the pioneering "Campfire" program.

U.S. aid's strategy of working closely with NGOs in implementing its Afiican environmental
programs has been effective. For one thing, U.S. A.I.D.'s limited environmental field personnel in
Afiica— indeed limited personnel overall—makes cooperation with private agencies imperative if
the agency is to comply with Congressional direaives. We also believe involvement of the U.S.
private sector, as conservation NGOs are, builds healthy partnerships and sets an important
example for the strengthening of Africa's own NGO sector.

BUILDING INSTITUTIONAL CAPACITY

National parks and other protected areas of all varieties form the backbone of conservation. In
Afiica the number of protected areas has increased substantially since the end of the colonial era.
African governments now devoted an enormous amount of their land territory to conservation.
Close to ten percent of many countries are designed as national parks, and many have another ten
percent in game management or multiple-use areas. An exception is South Afiica, which has a

highly developed park system, but one of the smallest percentages of land within the fonnal
government park system on the continent (but a system that is complimented by a robust
conservation private sector).

The growth of this protected area network has created a continuing need in Afiica is to strengthen
the park, wildlife and forestry institutions that manage natural resources. One of African Wildlife
Foundation's first projects launched the Wildlife Training College at Mweka, Tanzania in 1962.
In the years since, Mweka College has trained a generation of park and wildlife professionals.
But we recently found a growing need to upgrade skills through training within the ranks of the
existing protected area authorities. U.S. A.I.D. concurred and the agency has been supporting the
PARCs project in three regions of Africa—a project that African Wildlife Foundation manages in
eastern Afiica, while WWF manages southern Africa, and the Wildlife Conservation Society
(WCS) manages central Afiica. Using three U.S. NGOs, the project focuses on strengthening the
resources of individual protected area agencies, and in-service training of their staff.

COMMUNITY-BASED CONSERVATION

In addition to government protected area capacity-building, a second major focus of African
environmental concern has been to strengthen the linkage between protected area agencies,
poverty alleviation and community development. Four U.S. A.I.D. -supported Afiican Wildlife
Foundation projects specifically focus on this issue: work with Tanzanian Park Agency
(T ANAPA) in Tanzania; the "Cobra" project in Kenya: and the Lake Mburo and Bwindi Forest
projects in Uganda. In our "Neighbors as Partners" project in Tanzania, Afiican Wildlife
Foundation works with TANAPA to build a community outreach program. As a result,
TANAPA has a new government benefit-sharing policy, and trained community wardens
undertaking extension work outside all twelve of its parks. Now revenue sharing supports
digging wells, building schools and staffing health clinics, and for the first time, a non-adversarial
relationship is developing. African Wildlife Foundation is a sub-contractor on the "Cobra" project
in Kenya, which is seeking to build similar community conservation capacity in the Kenya Wildlife
Service. A key aspect of community conservation in Kenya will be greater government tolerance
of pastoralism and recognition of the role of this traditional way of life in protecting wildlife. In
addition, African Wildlife Foundation is working with communities in and around Lake Mburo
National Park and in Bwindi Forest, both in Uganda.

Although these programs are somewhat different in their specific details, they share a common
theme with many conservation project initiated in Afiica during the last decade. Each of these
programs seeks to empower local communities to utilize or benefit fi'om wildlife within the
communal lands and outside protected areas. These projects share a common belief that only
when communities benefit from conservation will they tolerate the costs associated with
cohabiting with wildlife or relinquish land to protected areas. The traditional approaches to
conservation, where wildlife is solely the province of government agencies and is ofi" limits to
communities, will not be sufficient to protect the wildlife or the great migrations of Afiica. In
Kenya, as in many areas of Afiica, wildlife outside protected areas has plummeted in the last two

decades. Communities, particularly those facing excruciating poverty, must become partners if
wildlife is to persist on communal lands. Partnership with communities means not only sharing of
revenue, but their active participation in decision making and granting them legal rights over
wildlife and other natural resources

There has been some controversy regarding Zimbabwe's Campfire Program because community
benefits are derived from utilization (consumptive utilization— hunting—particularly of elephants
as a primary source of revenue). The privately initiated Cullman Wildlife Project in Tanzania and
Zambia's community conservation program also rely on consumptive strategies, although not of
elephants. However abhorrent utilization is to some, in less than a decade since the Campfire
program began the amount of land in Zimbabwe devoted to wildlife has expanded from 1 2% (all
in the govenunent system) to 33% of the country, with the bulk of the new wildlife areas on
commercial and communal lands. Overall, biological diversity, private landowners, and poor
communities have been the winners. In the case of the Tanzanian parks department and Kenya
and Uganda wildlife authorities, at least to date, community benefits have come from non-
consumptive nature tourism. However, the underlying principle of these diverse programs is the
same — wildlife will not survive in Africa amid a sea of poverty. Wildlife will not survive outside
protected areas unless the benefits that accrue to communities are greater than other — often
environmentally destructive ~ forms of land use.

LESSONS LEARNED

In reviewing this wildlife-related experience, what are the broader lessons we can learn for the
fiiture of natural resource management in Africa?

The first is a matter of principle—the only conservation projects that offer a genuine alternative to
the continued over-consumption of natural capital are those that combine human development
with environmental concerns.

Second, finding ways to increase production through more intensive development of good
agricultural lands will be important to relieve pressure on Africa's vast areas of fragile marginal
arid and semi-arid land (which is better devoted to wildlife and pastoralism). But increased
production will not suffice unless inequitable access to productive lands is also addressed at the
national level.

Third, Africa must develop a modem industrial and urban economy to absorb its growing
population, while avoiding the intense environmental and social destruction that plagued South
Africa's rush to development during the apartheid era.

Fourth, that sustainable resource development alternatives for the poor, especially poor women,
are not simply or even primarily a process of transferring new technology, but an institutional and

social process. These problems do not respond to simple, large, capital-intensive engineering-
based projects, but to complex, local, on-site, labor-intensive cooperative solutions that are the
particular strength of NGOs.

Fifth, a key element of successful rural conservation is to give rural people secure rights to
resources and the ability to defend their gains against encroachers.

Sixth, improvements in the quality of life—better health, increased child survival, greater
opportunities for women, and assurances of resource ownership—are preconditions for the
population stabilization which is fundamental to slowing the deterioration of Africa's
environment.

Finally, while African Wildlife Foundation is focused heavily on creating successful field projects,
success in the field will ultimately fail if it is not integrated with a supportive or at the very least
benign policy environment. Fundamental to that policy environment is the role of civil society —
democratic, open systems and a strengthened Afiican NGO movement.

In 1993, the Biodiversity Support Program, a project funded by U.S. A.I.D., produced a
document called "African Biodiversity: Foundation for the Future— A Framework for Integrating
Biodiversity, Conservation and Sustainable Development." That document listed eight important
principles that emerged during the drafting of the report. Although several years have passed,
those principles are equally valid today, and are attached to this testimony.

CONCLUSION

The major challenge in Afiica in the years ahead will be to reverse the deterioration of the rural
environment by forging an alliance between local groups and national governments and linking
natural resource concerns with national development strategies. Broad issues of structural
adjustment, debt, international trade, commodity prices or misguided political leadership, all
frustrate and circumvent many small-scale development and conservation projects. However,
debt, trade, structural adjustment, and internal political issues — not the environment — are the
paramount immediate concerns of African governments. U.S. leadership has been critical in
maintaining a focus on longer term environmental concerns.

While broad policy and socioeconomic issues continue to be acted out in a theater to
which the rural poor are denied access, we have made some progress is the field. The early days
of disaster relief for the development community and of strictly protected parks established for the
conservation community have given way to involvement in long-term development assistance and
natural resource management by these two communities, a merging of interests linking the
resource base of Afiica and its people. It is from this common ground that we will be able to
reverse the degradation of the African enviroiunent, and secure a future for its people and wildlife.

Attachment

Valuable ecosystems are found in all African coumhes. These ecosystems are valuable not only
in local or naoonal terms but also, in many cases, in global terms. A framework for rhe
conservation of biodiversity must take into account the multiplicity of ecosystems that exist in
sub-Saharan Africa. Different approaches are necessary in different situations.

Local traditions, knowledge systems, institutions, and environmental conditions are important
factors in biodiversity conservation. The taslc of modifying or limiting activities destructive of
biodiversity is simplified if efforts are made to reinforce, encourage, and further develop local
practices or traditions that are already consistent with biodiversity conservation.

All biological resource users should be treated equitably. Subgroups within a community, or
different communities, often have different perspectives on the use and conservation of the same
set of biological resources. Women and the poor, in particular, have often been ignored or
disadvantaged by development activities, to the detriment of biodiversity conservation.

Broadly based participation is essential. Local people must be involved at every step from
planning to implementation to evaluation and redesign. Initially, governments and other funding
agencies may need to suggest new integrated projects. In time, local communities and the
private sector are likely to want to initiate similar projects but will need technical and financial
assistance to do so. Projects should be carried out with local communities, ratiier than for
them.

Biodiversity conservation must be understood in terms of the whole system. Even small
decisions should be made with regard to the broader (national or ecosystem) perspective. The
utilitarian focus on preserving endemism and genetic resources needs to be modified, with
increasing emphasis placed on conserving ecological systems as a whole.

It is important to accept that people will continue using resources. It is the kind and intensity
of resource uses that are important. Many conventional conservation efforts have advocated
protection without human use; conversely, modem agricultural systems have emphasized
production without conservation. The move now must be toward programs and projects that
meet human needs in ways less destructive to the environment. Production systems that are
sensitive to biodiversity are more likely to be sustainable in the long term.

A range of biodiversity conservation systems should be supported and replicated wherever
possible. Every African country has its own set of biodiversity resources. The full range of
biomes in a country must be considered, and within each biome there may be several major
types of ecosystems. Innovative new complexes of production activities should aim at
protecting representatives of each ecosystem type. Replication is necessary, because of the
unpredictable resource losses from natural disaster, wars and civil strife.

Appropriate inceruives are needed to encourage all participants to become involved with
conservation. Direct economic incentives include provision of tax breaks for communities or
businesses involved in biodiversity conservation. Secure land and resource tenure can stimulate
investment (of botii human energy and financial resources) in conservation of natural resources.
Government officials should have incentives for effective work in rural areas. A local
community voice in biological resources governance can, of itself, be an mcentive to sustainable
management. Also, disincentives should be applied to actions destructive of biodiversity.

From "African Biodiversity: Foundation for the Future." Biodiversity
Support Program, 1993, pages xx-xxi.

Sierra
Club

4O8 C Street, N.E. Washington, D.C. 20002 202.547. II4I

Testimony of

Stephen Mills

Sierra Club

Human Rights and Environment

Campaign Director

before the

House Committee on International Relations
Subcommittee on Africa

One Earth, One Chance

Fax: 202.547-6019 Non-chlonne bleached

100% post-consumer recycled paper

Good afternoon. My name is Stephen Mills and I am the Human Rights and
Environment Campaign Director for the Sierra Club. I appreciate the opportunity to
present to the Committee the observations of the Sierra Club's International Program on
the issues we believe pertinent to Africa's environmental future. I will concentrate my
remarks today on West Africa, particularly on Nigeria, and the issue there on which the
Sierra Club is currently most active. I will summarize my testimony but ask that the full
text be submitted for the record.

This afternoon I would like to discuss, in part, the role that the multinational oil
company Shell has played in Nigeria, and their collusive relationship with a brutal
military dictatorship. I believe that this case provides a good example of the challenges
faced by Africans across the continent as they strive to develop and manage their natural
resources. It is also the story of a heinous double-standard utilized by of one of the
world's most recognized multinational corporations. The Sierra Club aims to hold Shell
up as an example of how development should not occur in Africa. I will close with some
recommendations for preventing future Nigerian tragedies.

Madam Chairman, in February of 1994, in an Atlantic Monthly article entitled,
'The Coming Anarchy," Robert Kaplan wrote that the cities of West Africa at night are
some of the unsafest places in the world. He wrote that West Africa is becoming the
symbol of worldwide demographic, environmental, and societal stress, in which criminal
anarchy emerges as the real "strategic" danger.

The intention of his article was to stimulate readers to understand "the
environment" for what it is: the national security-issue of the early twenty-first century.
"The political and strategic impact of surging populations, spreading disease,
deforestation and soil erosion, water depletion, air pollution, and rising sea levels in
critical overcrowded regions," he said, "will be the core foreign-policy challenge from
which most others will ultimately emanate."

For example, Kaplan noted that when Sierra Leone achieved its independence, in
1961, as much as 60 percent of the country was primary rain forest. Now six percent is.
In the Ivory Coast the proportion of forest has fallen from 38 percent to eight percent.
The deforestation has led to soil erosion, which has led to more flooding and more \
mosquitos. As a result, it has been reported that virtually everyone in the West African
interior now has some form of malaria.

Kaplan said that to mention "the enviroimaent" or "diminishing natural resources"
in foreign-policy circles was to meet a brick wall of skepticism or boredom. To make
matters worse, there are those who even beUeve that what Africa really needs in order to
help give it an economic boost is in fact more pollution. In a January 14, 1992 internal
memo to World Bank chiefs, economist Lawrence Summers wrote, "I've always's thought
that the underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly under-polluted...just between you
and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries

to the LDCs [lesser developed countries]." It is within this niix that we dwell when
consider Africa's environmental future.

Fortunately, some of this mentality appears to be changing. In April of this year
Secretary of State Warren Christopher in a speech at Stanford University armounced his
intention to place enviroimiental issues in the mainstream of American foreign policy.
He said that "enviroimiental forces transcend borders and oceans to threaten directly the
health, prosperity and jobs of American citizens." He noted that "addressing natural
resource issues is frequently critical to achieving political and economic stability, and
pursuing our strategic goals around the world."

That day in California, Secretary Christopher aimounced a series of initiatives that
will not only help protect the environment, but also protect U.S. interests. After all, it is
certainly in America's best interest to help encourage economic development in Africa's
developing coimtries. Very few poor Africans can afford to buy expensive American
products.

The Sierra Club commends Secretary Christopher for aimoimcing these new
environmental initiatives and we look forward to assisting in their implementation. We
will urge, however, that the State Department's new initiatives extend additionally to
individual citizens in their right to protect the environment, and their right to clean water
and clean air. This is because the Sierra Club believes that environmental rights are
directly linked to himian rights - that everyone has a right to a clean and healthy
environment.

We beUeve that no country can feign environmental awareness when its citizens
are forbidden to speak freely, when they are forbidden to assemble, or when they are
persecuted, and as I will later discuss, in some instances executed, for protecting the
environment.

For more than 100 years, the Sierta Club has worked to preserve and protect
North America's environment by empowering individuals at the local and national level.
Part of the organization's strength has been the political activism in its grassroots
campaigns for strong enviroimiental protection laws. While the Club's first priority has
always been to urge the United States to get its own house in order, it is also imperative
that we keep the U.S., other wealthy nations, and multinational corporations, from
preying on indigenous communities in the developing world.

When enviroimientalists like Chico Mendes of Brazil are murdered, or like
Wangari Maathai of Kenya are harassed and beaten, or like Ken Saro-Wiwa of Nigeria,
are hanged because of their political and environmental activism, the relationship
between human rights and enviroimiental protection becomes all too clear.

Madam Chairman, I am certain that this subcommittee has been following the

recent events in Nigeria. I am sure that the subcommittee members, like the rest of us,
were shocked by the November execution of playwright and environmentahst Ken Saro-
Wiwa. So I am sure that most of the information I am about to discuss will not come as
news to you. I will tell you though that it has been a most enlightening period for the
members of the Sierra Club. Though we have been active on international
environmental issues for nearly 30 years now, mostly on development bank lending and
on international trade issues, never has an international environmental issue so
captivated our members. I suppose it is because the members of the Sierra Club across
America could so readily identify with the struggle of one of Nigeria's minority people,
the Ogoni. Their desire for freedom from pollution is something we all seek.

The Sierra Club campaign to support the Ogoni people of Nigeria in their fight
for environmental justice has given rise to an entirely new perspective in the Sierra Club.
Our Nigeria campaign is now part of a larger agenda in which we will be looking at the
role of multinational companies in developing countries. We aim to inform the public as
to whether the influence of certain corporations in various developing countries has
ultimately been a good or bad thing for the local communities. We have already
determined that in the case of Shell's operations in Nigeria it has been a bad thing.
While Shell and the brutal military dictatorships have gotten rich, the Ogoni people have
had their lives destroyed.

First some background on Nigeria. It is the most populous country in Africa, with
a population of approximately 100 million. One in every four Africans is Nigerian — and
the population there is set to double during the next twenty-five years, while the country
continues to deplete its natural resources. Nigeria is one of the world's largest exporters
of oil, producing some 2 million barrels of oil each day, bringing about $10 billion a year
to the military leaders and accounting for about 97 percent of export revenues. (Half of
that total is pumped by Shell, making the company by far the dominant economic force
in Nigeria.) Yet Nigeria remains one of the world's poorest countries, suffering from
frequent paralyzing gas shortages.

Someone must be getting rich, but it isn't the Nigerian people. The average
Nigerian income is less than $300 a year, as Joshua Hammer reported in the June 1996
issue of Harper's magazine. "While the country's oil elite dwell in lavish compounds ^with
fleets of Mercedes, imported food and wine, and fat overseas bank accounts,"he said,
"agriculture which once accoimted for 90 percent of Nigeria's export income, is in ruins."
Nigeria's cities, says Hanmier, "swollen by the mass migration from rural areas during the
1970's oil boom, are smog-choked zones of anarchy."

Nigeria also has a reputation for being one of he most corrupt and criminal
countries on the planet. Even before the country's latest human rights transgressions
occurred, direct flights between the United States and Nigeria were suspended by order
of the U.S. Secretary of Transportation because of ineffective security at the terminal
and its environs. A State Department report cited the airport for "extortion by law-

enforcement and immigration officials." This is one of the few times, reported Hammer,
that the U.S. goverimient has embargoed a foreign airport for reasons that are linked
purely to crime. State Department officials increasingly note Nigeria's involvement in
heroin trafficking.

In June of 1993, General Ibrahim Babangida annulled Nigeria's democratic
presidential election. Five months later General Sani Abacha seized power, abolished
all democratic institutions, shut down newspapers, and jailed most of the opposition,
including the winner of the 1993 presidential election, Moshood Abiola, Mrs. Kudirat
Abiola, her husband's most vocal supporter, was assassinated last month, many believe in
yet another attempt to silence an outspoken military critic.

The tragedy that occurred on November 10, 1995, however, stunned the world. In
the Nigerian city of Port Harcourt, writer and environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa was
hanged by the Nigerian military. A military tribimal found Saro-Wiwa guilty of inciting a
riot in which four people were killed, even though he was miles away in another town.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Sierra Club and many other human
rights and environmental organizations declared the trial a sham, responding that Saro-
Wiwa had been convicted on trumped up charges. Of the nineteen prosecution witnesses
called, two of the most damaging would later admit to having been bribed by the military
junta.

Within hours of the execution, the Nigerian military had deployed some 4,000
troops throughout Ogoniland, beating anyone caught mourning in public. School
headmasters were arrested as a warning not to discuss Saro-Wiwa in the classroom.
Pastors were arrested because they prayed for Ken Saro-Wiwa.

Ken Saro-Wiwa was the President of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni
People, or MOSOP, a volimteer-based democratic organization governed not unlike the
Sierra Club. MOSOP was organized as a response to the environmental devastation
which has occurred in Ogoni as a result of 38 years of oil exploitation. Ogoni demands
include an end to the pollution caused primarily by the oil spills and gas flares of Royal-
Dutch Shell. The Ogoni are also demanding a share of the oil revenues from their land.

The Sierra Qub has come to believe that a boycott of Shell OU and an embargo
of Nigerian oil exports are the best way to stop the environmental and human rights
abuses in Nigeria. The participation in, and endorsement of, boycotts is a rarity for the
Sierra Qub. But despite repeated meetings, letters and pleas. Shell International
continues to deny any complicity in the persecution of the Ogoni people. Though their
pollution and poisoning of Ogoni is well documented, Shell continues to refuse to accept
responsibility.

OgOEdland has a population of approximately 500,000, in an area of just some 400
square miles. It contains 96 oil wells, four oil fields, one petrochemical plant, one
fertilizer plant, and two refineries. By some estimates the region has produced about

600 million barrels of crude oil during the past forty years.

Since 1958, Royal Dutch Shell has extracted some $30 billion worth of oil from
the lands of the Ogoni people. While royalties from these sales fill the coffers of the
Nigerian military, the rich farmland of Ogoni has been laid waste by oil spills and the
venting of toxic gases. Meanwhile, the Ogoni lack miming water, electricity, adequate
schools or healthcare.

Even though Nigeria accounts for some 14 percent of Shell's production, between
1982 and 1992, nearly 40 percent of the company's oil spills have occurred there. Shell's
high-pressure pipelines were constructed above ground through villages and crisscross
over land that was once used for agricultural purposes, rendering it economically useless.
Many pipelines pass within a few feet of Ogoni homes. In one case a Shell
subcontractor destroyed a village hospital to make way for pipelines. Six years later all
that remains is the framework of a new hospital the community was promised.

In Nigeria there are few or no requirements to conduct environmental impact
studies, recycle oil waste or lay subterranean oil pipes instead of cheaper above ground
pipes. Waste oil is haphazardly buried in makeshift pits - only to bubble again to the
surface during the tainy season. Madam Chairman, you asked that I address the issue of
property rights in my testimony. Well in 1978, the military declared all land in Nigeria
the property of the federal governments. This had the effect of freeing the oil
companies from having to negotiate with locals who property included vast oil reserves.

According to the World Wide Fund for Nature in the U.K, 76 percent of the
natural gas pumped up with crude in Nigeria is burned off, compared with .6 percent in
the United States. A World Wildlife Fund study also revealed that gas flares in Nigeria
emit 34 million tons of carbon dioxide" and 12 million tons of methane, making
petroleum operations in Nigeria one of the world's largest contributors to global
warming. Gas flaring in Ogoni villages has destroyed wildlife, plant life, poisoned the air
and water, and left residents half-deaf and prone to respiratory diseases. According to
the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, the nearly four
decades of oil extraction in the Niger Delta, home to coastal rain forest and mangrove
habitat ~ has left it the most endangered river delta in the world. ^

In May, many of the claims of environmentalists against Shell were vindicated.
Bopp van Dessel, Shell's former head of environmental studies revealed in a British
television interview that the company broke its own rules and international standards and
failed to respond to his warnings. "Wherever I went I could see that Shell were not
operating their facilities properly," Van Dessel said. "They were not meeting their own
standards, they were not meeting international standards. Any Shell site that I saw was
polluted. Any terminal that I saw was polluted."

It was in response to this exploitation, that in 1990 Ken Saro-Wiwa and other

Ogoni leaders formed the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People. On January
4, 1993, Saro-Wiwa drew international attention to their cause by leading a peaceful
protest march of 300,000 people through Ogoniland. Again, that was 300,000 people in a
community of 500,000. Their resistance has been met with repression. In May 1994, the
Nigerian Internal Security Task Force attacked, and virtually destroyed, over 30 Ogoni
villages, killing more than 100 people and arresting hundreds more.'^'In the years since
MOSOP was foimded, more than 1000 Ogoni have been killed during clashes with the
Nigerian military police. The Ogoni are a peaceful people. To the best of our
knowledge, there have been no protest-related deaths of any person associated with Shell
or the Nigerian military.

An internal memo obtained by MOSOP later revealed that the military
goverimient had in fact decided to escalate its efforts against the community. A May 5
memo written by Major Paul Okuntimo, head of the regional arm of the military, the
Rivers State Internal Security Force, warned of what was to come:

Shell operations still impossible unless ruthless military
operations are undertaken for smooth economic activities to
commence... Recommendations: Wasting operations during
MOSOP and other gatherings making constant military presence
justifiable. Wasting targets cutting across communities and
leadership cadres especially vocal individuals of various groups.

The full text of the memo is attached to my testimony.

Shell's general mimager in Nigeria Nnaemeeka Achebe, told Harper's magazine in
June that "[fjor a commercial company trying to make investments, you need a stable
environment. Dictatorships can give you that"

The Sierra Club believes that Shell Oil should feel considerable responsibility for
the death of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the other Ogoni activists. Shell's massive pollution,
repeated denial of responsibility for it, its refusal to clean up the Ogoni territory, and its
appeals to the Nigerian military to silence the protestors is what incited the civil unrest.

More than ninety percent of Nigeria's foreign revenue comes from oil exports.
Nearly 50% of this oil is exported to the U.S.. Americans are the largest consumers of
Nigerian oil. Yet, Nigerian oil represents only 3.5 percent of America's total oil
consumption. It is both economically possible and morally imperative that we stop our
consimaption of the oil that fuels the current regime. Shell makes approximately $200
million a year in profits from Nigeria and has begun work on a $4 billion natural gas
joint venture with the military regime. An international embargo on Nigerian oil would
hurt the country's generals ~ who pocket most of the country's $10 billion oil revenue. A
boycott would hold Shell accountable for its environmental abuses and tolerance of
injustice.

On January 30th of this year, Dr. Owens Wiwa, brother of Ken Saro-Wiwa,
testified before a joint briefing of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus and
Congressional Black Caucus. Dr. Wiwa told of an April 1995 meeting with Brian
Anderson, Chairman and Managing Director of Shell Nigeria. Dr. Wiwa asked Mr.
Anderson if he would use his influence to stop the trial of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his eight
colleagues, and free Ken so that negotiations could start between Shell and the Ogoni
people.

According to Dr. Wiwa, Mr. Anderson replied that this would be "difficult but not
impossible". However, in return for Shell's help, he would require a press release from
MOSOP saying that there was no environmental devastation as a result of Shell's
activities in Ogoniland. The Ogoni rejected this offer.

Nine days after the Ogoni were executed, the Sierra Club Board of Directors
voted to support an embargo of Nigerian oil and a consumer boycott of Shell products
until such time as the company has cleaned up the pollution it has caused in Nigeria,
agreed to conform to U.S. standards while operating in Nigeria, and paid compensation
to the peoples adversely affected by their activities. The Sierra Club is calling on the
United States government and all other governments around the world to impose
economic sanctions- against the military goverimient of Nigeria.

We believe that sanctions should be taken against Nigeria and that these sanctions
should remain in force until such time as the Abacha government resigns, steps are taken
to restore democratic government to Nigeria, and the bodies of the nine Ogoni victims
who were executed November 10, 1995, are returned to their families for burial.

Shell now claims that the company is spending $100 million on environmental
improvement, and $4.5 million for the "Niger Delta Environmental Survey". To the first,
we say it's about time. It is believed that old and faulty equipment is to blame for much
of the oil spillage. The Sierra Club considers the latter, the "Niger Delta Environmental
Survey" to be nothing more than a public relations gimmick. The head of Shell's
commission set up to investigate the enviroimiental destruction. Prof. Claude Ake, has
already resigned, citing his doubts about its impartiality and his concern about the
disclosure in British newspapers that Shell imported weapons into Nigeria to help arm
the police to protect its oil installations.

If Shell indeed wanted to help improve Ogoni, they would clean up the
enviroimiental devastation they have already caused before proceeding with new
ventures. They would reimburse the farmers and homeowners who have been brutally
forced off their land to make way for oil wells and pipelines, and they would pay
reparations to the thousands of Ogoni who suffer health problems as a result of Shell's
massive pollution. If Shell was really concerned about Nigeria's environment, they would
adhere to the same enviroimiental standards in Nigeria as they are held to in Europe
and America.

We do not accept that Shell can perform in an environmentally responsible
manner in Europe and America, but not in Nigeria. We caimot understand how such a
well-respected company could pay millions of dollars to the most corrupt regime in
Africa and stand helplessly by as men, women and children were slaughtered to protect
Shell's installations.

I should point out here that the Sierra Club strongly supports H.R. 2697, the
"Nigeria Democracy Act" sponsored by Rep. Donald Payne, and the Senate companion
bill, S.1419 sponsored by Sen, Nancy Kassebaum. Our members have been writing
letters and making phone calls to their representatives to urge cosponsorship of this
important legislation. I understand that Congressman Payne is eager to have hearings on
this bill and we encourage your committee to schedule those hearings as soon as
possible.

A unique coalition of organizations, in the form of the Intemationsd Roundtable
on Nigeria, has come together to support the passage of these two bills. This is probably
the first time that organizations such as the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Human Rights
Watch, Amnesty International, the Teamsters, TransAfrica, the Service Employees
International Union, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, and many
Nigerian democratic organizations, have all worked so closely together. We have all
been impressed of late with the tremendous work now being carried out by the Assistant
Secretary of State for Human Rights, John Shattuck. We are aware that Nigeria is now
a top priority of his office and we appreciate his willingness to often include members of
our coalition in policy discussions.

However, I must admit a great deal of finstration and disappointment that the
Clinton administration has not been able to produce more in the way of real sanctions
against Nigeria ~ either multinational' or unilateral. Administration officials have told us
they are still consulting with other countries on these long-promised sanctions. The fact
is, America is seen as the defender of democracy, and the world is waiting for the U.S.
to act. Other countries will follow our lead. Another 19 Ogoni arrested with Ken Saro-
Wiwa remain in jail and are awaiting trial. Unless some actions are taken soon by our
country, they and many others are sure to suffer the same fate as Saro-Wiwa.

In early March, President Clinton quietly returned U.S. Ambassador Walter
Carrington to Nigeria. The Sierra Club believes that this action sent the wrong message
to the military government of General Sani Abacha. Returning our ambassador sent the
message that the U.S. will not take decisive action against those governments that
persecute, and in this case, execute, environmental activists. In meetings with Nigerian
environmental activists I often heard that the U.S. Embassy was not a place they felt
they could turn to for support. That no one from the embassy had been outspoken in
defense of environmental protection in Nigeria. I hope this has since changed. We must
impress upon our country's official representatives abroad that they not only represent
the America's business interests but it's moral interests as weD, that of protecting the

environment and human rights. We hope that Secretary Christopher's recent remarks
California are acted upon by State Department staff in the field.

Nigeria's human rights and environmental crisis can, we believe, only be solved
together. Without respect for human rights, the Nigerian government will continue to
repress Ogoni demands for justice from Royal/Dutch Shell and other multinational oil
companies. At the same time, the powerful democratic spirit unleashed in the Ogoni
struggle for environmental justice will contribute mightily to the broad campaign for
democracy and human rights in Nigeria.

The Sierra Club will not allow the crusade of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the other
Ogoni activists to quietly fade away. Our goal is to send a message to the Nigerian
government that all citizens have a right to speak freely, the right to assemble, and the
right to a clean and healthy environment. Our goal is to hold Shell accountable for its
actions and demand that it adhere to strict international codes of conduct.

Thank you again very much for allowing me to testify today. I look forward to
answering any questions you might have.

###

OF NIGERIA

GOVERNMENT H0U5K

FACTS SHEET

RESTRIcriD

RESTRICTED

WASTING OPERATIONS COUPLED WITH PSYCHOLOGICAL TACTICS
OF DISffLACEMENT/WASTINC AS NCTED ABOVE.

_- CRESS MONITOR AND LOBBY.

RESTRICTICSJ OF UlUOTHORISED VISITORS ESPECIALLY THOSE
FROM EUROPE TO THE OCONI.

MONTMY PRESS BRIEFING 3Y CHAIRMAN, RIVERS STATE
INTERNAL SECURITY (RSIS).

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS (EStlMATES/FUNDING);

INITIAL DISBURSEMENT OP 50 MILLION NaLRA AS ADVANCED
ALLOWANCES TO OFFICERS AND MEN AND FOR LCCtSTICS TO
.COMT^NCE OPERATIONS WITH Il-fMEDIATE EFFECT AS AGREED.

iCO»<CC AiLCWANCE RJ^TSS A?.=L:CA3LE AS EARLIER DISCUSSED.

.PRESSURE. ON OIL CC.MPANIES FOR PROMPT REGULAR IiMFUTS AS
SiSg'uSSSB. ■ '

C.MPASEC STANDS BY AS ARPJLNGED.

?>emar;<s :

i.;£ i:C*tRHE-IJAW-AHO.\DA (OBaCI) AGENDA FOR SKELETAL
OPERATIONS UNTIL FULL ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES COMMENCE
IN OGONI.

SURVEILLANCE ON OGONI LEADERS C0NSIDS.R2D AS SECURITY
RISKS/MOSOP PROPELLERS.

- PRESENT SSG OBVIOUSLY SENSITIVE (OCBAKOR/LKWERRE
C.^INECTION).

- MOSIEND AltD HORETO IN IJAWS TERRITORY AS TaR(ZTS

FOR CLAMP DOWN. . ' .\

- MODIFICATIONS OF PROCRAWG CONTINUOUSLY.

RUTHLESS- OPERATIONS AND HIGH LEVEL AUTHORITY FOR
THE TASK FORCE EFFECTIVXNESS .

- DIRECT SUPERVISION SY MILAl) TO AVOID UNRULY
INTERFERENCE BY OTHER SUPERIOR OFFICERS.

RSIS INDEPENDENCE NECESSARY DESPITE SOME MOPOL

X.JPUTS. wnx.

Thl* caeraC tovt. mtmo, oecaload Cva day* age. tovam chc baaia oi
cha prasaae mllleary oparacloa la Ogonl. It vladlcataa KDSOF's
poatdan chac cha Ogool crlala la coactlvad by eha |ovc. and Shell
CO provtda ao oppoccimlcy for cha mlllcary ecaekdawa Co aaabla
Shall racuaa oparadon la Osoal aa wall aa ace a* • daearraac to
ochcr oll-pcoduelne eoaauaiclaa.
NOSOP

rOft p. CKUNTIMO
CHAIRMAN, RSIS

12/05/9^*

RS IS/MILAD/LOO/ 9<*004

RESTRICTED

f(fsrp rrrs-n

aESTfltr iTn

DiVgStS STATE ^,^ (;OVIiR,NMEM HOU.St

or NiGKRrA

FACTS SHEET

RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED

RIVERS STATE INTERNAL SECURITY TASK FORCE, GOVERNMENT HOUSE, PH.

M r ri 0

TO: KIS EXCELLENCY THE MILITARY ADMINISTRATOR RIVERS STATE

FROM: " THE CHAIRMAN RIVERS STATE INTERNAL SECURITY (RSIS)

SU3JECT: RSIS OPERATIONS: LA'./ AND ORDER IN OCONI, ETC

OBSERVATIONS:

- .-. POLICE IN OGON.T REH^IN INEFFECTIVE SINCE 1993-

SHELL OPERATIONS STILL IMPOSSIBLE UNLESS RUTHLESS
MILITARY OPERATIONS ARE UNDERTAKEN ?CR SMOOTH
ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES TO COMMENCE.
\

^.TtlA ISCM AND CP030 BORDERS INADVISABLE BECAUSE Or
INACCESSIBILirY. ADDED TO DISAGREEMENT BETVt-EEN
OPOaO/AfiDONI MAKING COOPERATION 3Y THE "OSMER
WR2ALISA3LE.

DIVISION BETVTEE:! the ELITIST CGONI LEADERSHIP EXISTS.

EITHER BLOC LEADERSHIP LACKS ADEQUATE INTLUENCE TO
DEFY NYCOP DECISIVE iTESISTaNCE TO OIL PRODUCTION
UMiSS REPaKATION of 400 MILLION DOLLARS PAID WITH
APJIEARS OF I^•T^REST TO Ma? OP AND KEN SARO-wr^A.

RECOMMENDATIONS/STRATEGIES:

INTRA-COMMUNAL/KINOOM FORMULAE <aTERNATIVE AS
DISCUSSED TO APPLY.

WASTING OPERATIONS DURING MOCOP AND OTHER GATHERINGS
MAKING CONSTANT MILITARY PRESENCE JUSTIFIABLE.

WASTING TARGETS CUTTING ACROSS COMMUNITIES AND
LEADERSHIP CADRES ESPECIALLY VOCAL INDIVIDUALS
-• VARIOUS G?.OUPS,

DEPLOYMENT OF 400 MILITARY PERSONNEL (OFFICERS AND
MEN).

NEW CHECKPOINTS SLICTTLY DIFFERENT FROM OPERATION
ORDER NO. 4/94 DATED 21/4/94 BY COMMISSIONER OF
POLICE RIVERS STATE COMMAND.

DIRECT DAILY REPORT TO MILAD.
RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED

WRITTEN STATEMENT BY ELIZABETH KJDHOY

DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON AFFAIRS, AFRICA RESOURCES TRUST

SUBNQTTED TO THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE ON

AFRICA - JULY 17, 1996

AFRICA RESOURCES TRUST

Constituted as a welfare organization in Zimbabwe and a private voluntary organization in
the US, the Africa Resources Trust (ART) is a non-governmental organization working in
Africa in the field of development and environment. ART is dedicated to the promotion of
human welfare (esptecially the alleviation of poverty in remote rural areas) through the
sustainable use of natural resources, with a special focus on wildlife. ART recognizes that
rural communities can use wild animals and plants on a sustainable basis to meet their
economic and social needs without contributing to the species depletion. It seeks to assist
rural people to use natural products for their development, whilst also contributing to
environmental conservation.

ART'S activities include; information outreach programs for communities focusing on the
link between conservation and development; working with governments and NGOs in
southern Africa on environmental policy research and analysis; developing environmental
education materials and training rural teachers on environmental education techniques.

OVER VIEW OF THE ISSUES AFFECTING AFRICA'S ECOLOGICAL FUTURE

Africa is frequendy portrayed by both the media and many in the international community as
a 'basket case', where populations are expanding beyond the capacity of the resource base to
sustain them; resources, both finite and renewable, are becoming exhausted; environmental
degradation is an irreversible force; and species loss a common occurrence. The ecological
challenge facing many African nations is a serious one. World Bank projections indicate that
by the year 2025 Africa's population will have doubled, reaching 1 billion. This will
dramatically increase the pressure on the natural resource base, which, unless viable
solutions are found, will lead to further environmental degradation.

What is heard less often from Africa however, are the success stories which address both
human development and resource conservation needs. This paper shall draw upon one of
these, the CAMPFIRE program in Zimbabwe, to indicate possible options for a sustainable
ecological future for Africa. The ecological future of Africa is intimately linked with the
development of its rural economy and the CAMPFIRE program is a response to this. The
rural economy has been subjected to pressures which have led to ecological and
environmental degradation. Key amongst these is the increasingly intense competition for
land, resulting in inappropriate, unsustainable forms of land use in some areas. This has led
to a loss of productive land and a related loss of biodiversity. Much of Africa is unsuitable
for intensive agricultural production - only 5 % of Southern Africa is considered suitable - but
the pressure for fanning land has forced people into marginal lands. The result is severe

land degradation which leaves people and the environment impoverished. Africa is unlikely
to produce its own 'green revolution' in the near future and may instead need to pursue a
more diversified path of natural resource management and agricultural production based upon
the prevalent natural conditions and available resources.

Africa's current development paths have focused on intensifying the productivity of arable
agriculture and livestock at the exjjense of exploring the productive potential of other existing
resources. This has produced competition for land in which the potential benefits of much of
the indigenous fauna and flora, particularly wildlife, are largely neglected. At the same time
conservation efforts have sought to protect these resources against development, creating a
seemingly insurmountable conflict between the goals of conservation and development.
Many African countries are currently rediscovering the productive and economic potential of
their indigenous resources in their national development programs. It is in this context that
the CAMPFIRE program provides possible options for reconciling conservation and
development objectives, whilst addressing the challenges described above.

HISTORICAL APPROACHES TO CONSERVATION IN AFRICA AND
ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES

Traditional approaches to conservation in Africa have been based upon the Western
conservation paradigm of protectionism. This essentially assumes that any interaction,
particularly use, between humans and wildlife will have a negative conservation impact. It
has sought to place wildlife within a vacuum, creating protected areas in which humans give
way entirely to animals. These protected areas are often viewed with resentment as they are
seen by rural [jeople as under used and elitist. Outside the protected areas we see an
increasing trend in which the converse situation occurs, with the wildlife and its habitat
giving way entirely to people, often resulting in a loss of biodiversity and environmental
degradation.

In the last ten years there has been a growing recognition throughout Africa that this
protectionist approach to wildlife conservation has been failing to address either the
environmental or developmental needs of African nations. An alternative approach to
conservation was required, which would address the realities of conservation and
development in the African context. This approach, commonly known as community based
natural resource management (CBNRM), is one in which responsibility for the management,
use and benefit of natural resources, including wildlife, is returned to the local communities
who live with it. This pragmatically acknowledges that benefits must accrue to the people
who coexist with wildlife otherwise more economically viable, but often environmentally
degrading, land uses will be preferred.

Zimbabwe was one of the first countries to pioneer this approach through the introduction of
the Communal Areas Management Program For Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE)
Program. The program is closely linked to the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) articles
and emphasizes the use of natural resources for sustainable development. Its principles are
also closely linked to Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration, which states that environment

issues are best handled with the participation of all citizens at the relevant level and to
Principle 12 and the new Subsidiary Principle which require that political decisions be taken
at the lowest possible level; thus requiring popular participation and ensuring that local
interests are articulated and incorporated into the decision-making process. CAMPFIRE is
thus a model applying the Rio Declaration Principles, the Convention on Biodiversity
Articles and the Principles that form the international environmental policy, in particular the
Subsidiary Principle.

CAMPFIRE, and other CBNRM programs throughout Southern Africa, recognize the
following key points as fundamental to the sustainable management of the natural resource
base:

• Those who can best manage the wildlife resource are those people who live with it
on a daily basis

• The conservation of wild species and habitat will only be successful in the long run if
it is able to generate revenue - if it is an economically competitive form of land use.

• To make wildlife economically competitive. Governments and conservation
organizations need to begin to promote harvesting and using wild species as an option
for wildlife conservation, rather than focusing exclusively on the old protectionist
conservation paradigm which prevented such uses.

• If wildlife is to become an economically viable form of land use it will be dependent
upon the availability of markets for wildlife products, these markets depend on policy
and regulation both at the international level and within some consumer nations, such
as the Endangered Species Act in the US.

EFFECTS OF CAMPFIRE ANP RELATED PRO.IECTS

It is our experience in Africa that conservation and development are both most effectively
achieved when the goals of each contribute towards the other. CAMPFIRE and other
similar initiatives are attempts to achieve this by ensuring that wildlife management becomes
an accepted land use practice in areas that are marginal for other forms of land use.

Until recently all use of wildlife was illegal and referred to as poaching. Thus wildlife was of
no legal use but was a very real pest which could destroy livelihoods overnight and presented
a serious threat to human lives. Each year thousands of people in Zimbabwe lose their entire
year's income, in the form of their crops, to marauding wild animals, often resulting in
starvation- Hundreds of people are killed or maimed, usually by elephant, hippo or buffalo.
In this context rural communities have been given strong incentives to get rid of wildlife,
and to change the habitat that sustains it, as fast as possible in any way they can, legal or
otherwise.

The advent of CAMPFIRE has reversed this situation by transforming wildlife, the liability,
into wildlife the important economic asset. To succeed, CAMPFIRE has introduced
legislation which effectively devolves ownership of wildlife to local communities. For the
first time in recent history, wildlife management has the potential to become a competitive
form of land use for the local communities who live with it. Wildlife is now viewed as a
valuable resource, which should be managed, nurtured and utilized in the same manner in
which a farmer previously managed his cattle. Wildlife has a comparative advantage to cattle
on semi-and rangelands as it makes wider and better use of the available vegetation and has
many marketable uses in addition to meat production. Conservative estimates indicate that
wildlife utilization produces returns of at least double those produced from livestock ranching
on marginal lands, approximately 50% of the land area of Zimbabwe.

By linking conservation benefits with development objectives, habitat destruction and
degradation has been reversed in Zimbabwe. CAMPFIRE started in 1989 when 2 districts
received authority to manage their wildlife. The fact that by 1993, 22 districts had joined the
program, approximately one third of all the districts in the country, speaks for itself. A
similar situation has occurred in the commercial farming sector. Today, more than 75% of
the privately owned ranches in Zimbabwe have integrated wildlife management practices into
their overall land use strategy and thus derive additional income from wildlife. In the SE
Low veldt a consortium of 22 commercial farmers have recently pooled their land to form a
wildlife conservancy of approximately 1 million acres, which Zimbabweans claim will be
the largest privately owned wildlife area in the world. Today in Zimbabwe 50% of the land
dedicated to wildlife management is found in commercial and communal areas, whilst
National Parks account for less than 30%.

This amounts to more than one third of the area of Zimbabwe, a real contribution to
biodiversity conservation. Key species have also benefitted considerably as a result, with
several species previously classified as endangered, such as the cheetah, Nile crocodile and
elephant, seeing significant increases in their populations. Habitat loss has been the single
biggest threat to wildlife conservation in Africa, by reversing this, many species have seen
increases in their populations.

Under CAMPFIRE more than 250,000 people are now engaged in the practice of managing
wildlife and reaping the benefits of using wild lands. These people live in remote areas that
have historically been by passed by development initiatives and it is no exaggeration to say
that they are some of the poorest people in the world. CAMPFIRE revenues amount to
approximately US$ 2,000,000 per year, an enormous figure when one considers that the
average annual income per household in these areas is approximately US$150. Communities
have devised a number of ways to improve their livelihoods by taking advantage of the new
found value of wildlife. The single biggest revenue generating activity is internationally
marketed safari hunting, which generates over 90% of all cash income. But a variety of other
uses exist, such as photographic safaris; live sales of wildlife; cropping to provide nutrition
locally and sale of skins. The revenues from these efforts generally go directly to
households, which decide how to use the proceeds. In the recent drought years this cash has

often staved off some of the worst effects of crop failure, starvation; or communildes may
pool their resources to build a clinic or school; often the money will be communally invested
in an income generating project, such as a grinding mill or shop.

CAMPFIRE is not only focused on wildlife management and income generating programs
but also on the sustainable use of other natural resources. It is a means by which
communities can take back control over their own futures and reassert their self-reliance. It
has returned to rural communities the right to make decisions concerning how they will use
their natural resources. CAMPFIRE has become a forum for a wide range of issues,
including representation, economic participation and the local governance of communal areas.
In many ways it is an exercise in democracy. It wiU be tragic and ironic if these rights are
undermined yet again by imperialistic approaches from outside that prescribe externally
determined environmental policies.

CAMPFIRE is by no means the only initiative of this type. Similar programs are in operation
in Botswana, Namibia, Malawi and Zambia. Tanzania, South Africa and Mozambique are
exploring options for developing programs, whilst several countries outside Southern Africa,
such as Uganda, Cameroon and Kenya are implementing pilot projects.

INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND NATURAL RESOURCES

It may be interesting to note that the impact of the US has played a significant role in the
history of CAMPFIRE, both through positive support as well as potential threats to its
economic viability. This paper will conclude by illustrating these impacts and the
implications this may have for future US policy towards Africa.

The first point refers to foreign aid provided by the US through the USAID. As is so often
the case with innovative approaches, CAMPFIRE began as an idea with no resources, little
political and financial support and many skeptics. As the program began to evolve, it
increasingly attracted the attention of both Government officials and international aid
agencies. The institutional development and financial support provided by USAID during the
pUot stage of this program proved to be a critical factor in demonstrating the viability of
linking conservation and development objectives through the use of wild species.

The need for such foreign assistance will continue for a number of years as the program
seeks to develop the institutional and economic basis for community based management of
natural resources across the country. The complexity of seeking to transform key elements of
a rural economy's established production systems should not be underestimated. It requires a
substantive investment in institutions, capacities and infrastructure, the costs of which cannot
be borne by the communities alone. In the long run trade, both domestic and international,
will determine the future of the program. CAMPFIRE depends upon obtaining an economic
return from wild resources, which in turn requires open and functional markets for these
products.

BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

3 9999 05983 742 5

CONCLUDING REMARKS

The African environment is extremely fragile and inappropnate fonns of land use rapidly
lead to environmental degradation. National development programs axe promoting the use of
indigenous flora and fauna as both an ecologically and economically viable land use in
marginal areas. The long term viability of such programs will depend upon demand and
markets for their products. If markets are not available other forms of land use will be
chosen, even though they may not be environmentally sustainable. If Governments and
organizations wish to assist in ensuring that Africa's ecological future is not jeopardized they
should create appropriate incentives for sustainable use of indigenous resources by providing
access to markets which will generate an economic incentive to conserve wildlife and its
habitat. In Africa natural resources are part and parcel of the communities life. They can
provide subsistence needs and marketable products in raw or processed form. CAMPFIRE
and similar approaches are not a panacea for all of Africa's environmental problems but they
represent part of the solution. It is the local use of resources for local people's development
that will ensure the long term ecological future of Africa.

ISBN 0-16-053645-6

9 780160"536458

90000

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Full text of "Africa's environment : the final frontier : hearing before the Subcommittee on Africa of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fourth Congress, second session, July 17, 1996"

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