WRI Features
A monthly features service on environment and development issues.

• New Tool to Help Cameroon Combat Illegal Logging. Global Forest Watch has worked with the Cameroon government to develop a new tool to better allocate forest resources and stem illegal logging.
• Glimmer of Hope for Embattled African Lake. Community involvement may resolve the debate between two southern African states over the resources of a shared lake.
• Commentary: World's Water Resources in Swift Decline. With the start of the "Water for Life" International Decade for Action, we must take steps to insure that our precious freshwater resources are preserved.

New Tool to Help Cameroon Combat Illegal Logging

by Peter Denton

A powerful new tool released recently by World Resources Institute's Global Forest Watch (GFW) will help the Cameroon government better assess and allocate forest resources throughout their country and support better law enforcement and governance.

In 2002, GFW and the government of Cameroon brokered a historic partnership to help the battle against illegal logging. This agreement marked the first remote-sensing and monitoring partnership between an African government and an independent group and has recently produced a report on the state of forest concessions and a mapping tool that will help officials from Cameroon's Ministry of Forests and Fauna (MINFOF) to uncover illegal logging throughout the country.

"Widespread illegal logging contributes to the destruction of forests and the loss of badly needed revenues across much of Central Africa," said Benoît Mertens, Cameroon project coordinator for GFW. The forest-mapping tool, released on March 7, is the product of two years of GFW work with the Cameroon government and many years of institutional experience with similar projects around the globe.

GFW creates maps of logging roads by interpreting satellite images and combines these maps with information on the legal boundaries of forest titles and protected areas. Due to this work, Cameroon's MINFOF will now be able to identify problem areas and prioritize them for field audits. The maps produced under this agreement also provide information on the status of the implementation of Sustainable Forest Management Plans for the forest concessions of Cameroon.

"We employ the latest technologies like satellite imagery and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), but without the cooperation of the government, of our local partners, as well as from the private sector in Cameroon, we would never have been able to acquire the data required for the production of this very important tool," said Pierre Methot, GFW Central Africa program manager. "We hope this atlas will become an integral part of the decision-making process in the sustainable management of the country's forest ecosystems."

Cameroon contains some of Africa's most biologically diverse and most threatened forests. The region's tropical forests, covering nearly 200 million hectares, extend from southern Cameroon through five other Central African countries. It is the second-largest contiguous tract of rainforest in the world, after the Amazon Basin

About 76 percent of more than 17 million hectares of Cameroon's forests - totaling some 22.8 million hectares - have either been logged or are allocated as logging concessions. Less than a fifth of the country's unprotected forests, mostly in central and eastern Cameroon, remain free from logging.

Methot and others with GFW stressed that the recently released atlas is not a panacea to the illegal logging dilemma. "This tool will help in the battle for sustainable and responsible logging," said Methot, "but only when used in conjunction with good governance and rigorous field work."

GFW staff and partners have started training activities in Cameroon so that government officials, industry and civil society are able to properly use the atlas and incorporate it into their daily decision-making. An integral part of GFW's plan is a large investment of technology to help Cameroon fight illegal loggers.

"All of the parties involved recognize that this version of the atlas constitutes a first step," said Egbe Achuo Hillman, Cameroon Minister of Forests and Wildlife. "By contributing to this atlas, the Government of Cameroon confirms its commitment to increased transparency and good governance. Subsequent efforts will be focused on keeping this tool up to date as well as training key practitioners in its use and integration in decision-making processes."

GFW has been working for more than six years to catalyze changes in global forest use to meet human needs and better protect forest ecosystems. GFW also has a similar agreement in place in the Republic of Congo and aims at producing similar map-based tools throughout Central Africa over the next several years. (WRI Features, 629 words)

Glimmer of Hope for Embattled African Lake

by Charles Mkoka

Unsustainable utilization practices on Lake Chiuta - which is shared by the two Southern African states of Malawi and Mozambique - and the poor state of policing and control of fishing activities have led to conservation conflicts which are rocking the management of the African lake.

A glimmer of hope, however, appears more evident as a result of continued consultations by authorities among communities that derive benefits from lake that lies on the frontier of the two countries.

The local conflicts have arisen from differences over the management of the Lake by fisheries authorities from the two neighboring countries. While Malawi is implementing conservation efforts to ensure sustainable fisheries management, the Mozambique side is relatively unchecked. The scenario has created fears that the lake resources will be subjected to over-exploitation, resulting in reduced fish stocks in the long run.

While Malawi and Mozambique share Lake Chiuta, the fishing policies and regulations for the two countries are different and the two countries have different enforcement capacities. This has been another source of conflict as there have been contentions on such issues as fish species, fish sizes to catch, close seasons, demarcated fish sanctuaries, net gear size and type as well as methods of fishing.

"Since the advent of colonial rule, fisheries management in Malawi has been based on a centralized approach," said Friday Njaya, Divisional Fisheries Manager for Southern Malawi. "Management decisions have been made with little or no consultation with the user community. Biological consideration informed much of the policy, legislative and resource management outcomes."
 
Starting in 1994, however, there has been renewed interest in the involvement of local communities in fisheries management through participation. One outcome of the Lake Chiuta crisis has been the formation of community based fisheries management committee such as Beach Village Committee (BVC) and Fisheries Association (FA), among others.
 
These communal groups have been formed in all the three major lake areas of Malawi. This follows the recent passing of a new Fisheries Management Act that provides for the establishment of co-management initiatives and, through a decentralization policy, allocates activities to be done at district level. The fisheries co-management program has been a model example where local communities involved in the management of fisheries resources can help change the situation for the better.

According to Transborder Dialogue, the official newsletter of the Southern Africa Network for Transboundary Natural Resources Management (TBNRM), the countries sharing the lake have their own policies and regulations governing the use and management of fisheries resources in Lake Chiuta. Fishermen have therefore tended to take advantage of the side where regulations are regarded "weak."

"Before the collaborative management approach," said Village chief Asibu Saute Ngokwe, "communities were being undermined when it came to discussing issues in their localities. Organization came to implement activities without consulting the village leaders. What they did not realize is that as leaders we can resolve our problems. All we want is to be given a chance to choose our own destiny."
 
A recent community dialogue between Malawi and Mozambique that was convened by the Malawi Fisheries department has demonstrated that community involvement is helpful in deriving solutions to natural resources management. The dialogue was aimed at developing a common approach to resolving the conflict and identifying community level institutions that will implement and monitor agreed strategies. The communities recognized the different fishing practices used in both countries, including the use of different types of nets.

After years of tension over fishing practices and access to resources along the lake, local fisherman from the two sides have agreed on strategies for their respective countries that promise to deliver a common approach to fisheries management in Lake Chiuta.
 
Only through transborder local dialogues have these two communities begun to resolve this issue and wait for further discussions at policy and ministerial levels. Because local communities have been intimately involved in the identification of problems and the development of solutions, this network will act as a case study in addressing further border disputes in southern Africa. (WRI Features, 670 words)

Commentary: World's Water Resources in Swift Decline

by Carmen Revenga

The United Nations General Assembly agreed in 2003 to proclaim the years 2005 to 2015 as the International Decade for Action, "Water for Life," beginning with World Water Day on March 22, 2005.

As Kofi Annan said, "Water is essential for life. Yet many millions of people around the world face water shortages. Many millions of children die every year from water-borne diseases. And drought regularly afflicts some of the world's poorest countries. The world needs to respond much better."

Water policies in most nations are failing to protect life's most vital resource. This fact is reflected in growing water scarcity and alarming declines in the health of aquatic ecosystems worldwide. More precious than oil, yet routinely wasted, water is arguably the world's most pressing resource issue.

Human development depends on adequate water - a fact that has driven the location of communities, the extent of agriculture, and the shape of industry and transportation for centuries. Because of its central place in our activities, water is also the focus of much engineering activity and investment in the form of dams, canals, pipelines, and irrigation systems.

Global water consumption rose six-fold between 1900 and 1995 - more than double the rate of population growth - and continues to grow rapidly as agricultural, industrial, and domestic demand increases.

As population increases and freshwater systems are modified to a point where many of their basic functions are affected, it becomes increasingly difficult to ensure that there is enough water for both people and nature. Water supplies are unevenly distributed around the globe, with some areas containing abundant water and others a much more limited supply.

Estimates of water scarcity calculated by the World Resources Institute in collaboration with the University of New Hampshire show that some 41 percent of the world's population, or 2.3 billion people, live in river basins under "water stress," meaning they are subject to frequent water shortages. Some 1.7 billion of these people live in "highly stressed" water basins where problems with local food production and economic development abound.

Global food production must increase in the years ahead to accommodate population growth, which means the world's farmers will need more water for irrigation. Growth in food production in the last 50 years has been roughly matched by a proportional increase in water use. Agriculture is society's major user of water, withdrawing some 70 percent of all water.

Unfortunately, most irrigation systems are relatively inefficient and result in massive water waste. Global estimates of irrigation efficiency show that around 60 percent of irrigation water never reaches the crop and is lost to evaporation and runoff.

Water pollution adds enormously to existing problems of local and regional water scarcity by removing large volumes of water from the available supply. In many parts of the world, rivers and lakes have become so polluted that their water is unfit even for industrial uses

Global concerns about water scarcity include not only surface water sources but groundwater sources. More than 1 billion people in Asian cities and 150 million in Latin American cities rely on groundwater from wells or springs.

Overdrafting of groundwater sources can rob streams and rivers of a significant fraction of their flow. In the same way, pollution of aquifers by nitrates, pesticides, and industrial chemicals often affects water quality in adjacent freshwater ecosystems.

Better management of water resources is the key to mitigating water scarcities in the future and avoiding further damage to aquatic ecosystems. In the short term, more efficient use of water could dramatically expand available resources.

This is particularly true in the agricultural sector, where experience shows that drip irrigation systems routinely cut water use 30-70 percent, while simultaneously increasing crop yields 20-90 percent.

More efficient water technology alone will not be sufficient to fully address the looming water crisis. It will also require difficult policy choices that reallocate water to the most economically and socially beneficial use.

This may mean diverting water from agriculture to commercial or household uses. In China, for example, planners estimate that a given amount of water used in industry generates more than 70 times more economic value than the same water used in agriculture.

To a certain extent, the transfer of water from low-value uses to higher-value uses is already well under way, especially where individuals hold legal water rights that they can sell to others. Farmers outside the city of Tirupur in southern India, for example, have begun to abandon farming so that they can sell their groundwater at a premium to water-hungry industries and urban users. Such "water markets" are becoming more common in arid regions of the western United States and Australia.

An important key to using and allocating water more efficiently is phasing out subsidies and allowing water prices to reflect the true cost of supply. Price reforms in Chile reduced irrigation water use 22-26 percent and saved $400 million in costs for developing new water supplies.

As the UN has noted, the policy and social decisions made over the next decade will be crucial to stopping freshwater shortages. Better governance and more effective policies are essential to outpacing the growing demand for our most important natural resource. (WRI Features, 863 words).