Reuters: Green Nobel winner: Africa, don't sign away resources

Reuters: Green Nobel winner: Africa, don't sign away resources

Sun Apr 19, 2009 2:23pm EDT

Ona, a wheelchair-bound Gabonese activist, has won the African 2009 Goldman Environmental Prize for a decade of activism to protect the Congo Basin Rainforest, the second- largest rainforest in the world.

He exposed a secret $3.5 billion deal between the Gabonese government and a Chinese company to build a mine and dam in and around one of Gabon's national parks. The ensuing outcry forced the government to cut the project concession by 90 percent.

"Africa can no longer sign contracts with economic partners to exploit their natural resources like they did in the 1930s," Ona told Reuters in Gabon's capital Libreville.

"Africa doesn't have to be subservient to do business. We have resources and economic partners have money -- it's 50-50. Those who don't want to do business by the terms that we fix should go elsewhere," he said, before flying to the United States where he will receive his prize on Monday.

Gabon is part of the Congo Basin and roughly 75 percent of the country is covered in dense tropical rainforest.

It is losing over 10,000 hectares of wooded land a year to logging, according to Mongabay, an environmental NGO. The World Wildlife Foundation estimated in 2002 that 70 percent of the forestry activities in Gabon were illegal.

In 2002, Gabonese President Omar Bongo designated 10 percent of the country's land as national parks.

But in 2006, the government handed a 7,700-square- kilometer concession in and around Ivindo National Park to the Chinese company CMEC to develop the Belinga Mine. The project included construction of a railway, roads and a dam in the middle of central Africa's most beautiful waterfalls to power the mine.

The agreement offered CMEC a 25-year tax break with Gabon receiving 10 percent of the project's profits.

HOUSEHOLD NAME

Ona, 45, leaked a copy of the agreement, and the strong public reaction drove the government to reduce the mining concession by 90 percent, scrap the tax break, and halt the project until an environmental impact assessment was done.

Chinese investment in Africa has burgeoned in recent years, but many of the deals between Chinese companies and African governments are shrouded in secrecy.

Ona was denied permission to leave Gabon three times last year and was held by the police in December, charged with possession of anti-government documents -- a charge he denies.

Through his campaigning, he has become a household name in Gabon and is one of the most respected civil society leaders.

"We appreciate his dedication and his work and especially the ideas that he defends in our country," said Gaspard Obiang, a pastor in Libreville, speaking in a shopping center.

"Mr Ona can help engage young people to understand that nature is something unique that God has given us," said Armel El Matcho, a security guard at the shopping center.

The Goldman Environmental Prize -- often called the "Green Nobel" prize -- includes $150,000 in cash, which Ona says he will use to fund projects for forest communities run by his Libreville-based non-governmental organization Brainforest.

"I wasn't born to be rich. I couldn't care less about being rich," he said. "You can't imagine the reality of people living around Gabon's national parks. We need to put money into helping these communities regain their dignity."

Ona, in a wheelchair because of childhood polio, has never shied away from political prosecution for his goals.

"Mandela spent decades in jail, but he never stopped the fight to liberate the people of South Africa," Ona said. "I'm not Mandela, but I say if you haven't found a cause for which you are ready to die, you haven't found meaning in your life."

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BBC News: 'Green Nobel' for forest champion

2009/04/19 15:57:35 GMT

A campaigner who was jailed during his battle to save the rainforest in Gabon has received a top international award.

Marc Ona Essangui was honoured for his fight to stop what he describes as a destructive mining project in the Ivindo National Park.

He is one of seven people from six continental regions to be awarded an equal share of the $900,000 (£600,000) 2009 Goldman Environmental Prize.

It has been described as "the Nobel Prize for grassroots environmentalism".

Mr Ona has campaigned for three years against the Belinga mine project - a deal between the government in Gabon and the Chinese mining and engineering company, CMEC, to extract iron ore.

The project includes the construction of a large hydroelectric dam, which is already underway, to provide power for the mine.

The dam is being built on the Ivindo River, near the Kongou Falls, Gabon's highest waterfall.

Mr Ona, who described the falls as "the most beautiful in central Africa", said that Gabon's government had failed to consult the local population and had not assessed the impact of the development on the environment before it gave permission for construction to begin.

He told BBC News that he hoped his receipt of the Goldman Prize would "draw international attention to just how precious this area is".

Political protest

Mr Ona, who uses a wheelchair, dedicated his early career to improving education and communication infrastructure in Gabon, including working with the United Nations Development Programme. He later turned his attention to environmental issues.

He eventually decided to focus his efforts full time on the work of his own environmental NGO, Brainforest, which aims to protect the rainforest for the benefit local of communities.

"The government established 13 national parks here, and I became interested in all the activities within them," he said.

"In 2006, my colleagues and I noticed that roads were being built within Ivindo."

When Mr Ona investigated, he discovered that there had been no environmental impact studies carried out before the road building started.

On its website, the Gabonese government describes the national parks as having been "classified for the conservation of Gabon's rich biodiversity".

The key goals of the national park scheme, it says, are preservation of "the wealth of the ecosystem… for current and future generations" and stimulating "the development of ecotourism as an economic alternative to the exploitation of natural resources".

Mr Ona said: "All of this construction was carried out illegally and against the code of the national parks."

He also unearthed and leaked a copy of the Belinga mine project agreement between the government and CMEC, revealing that CMEC had been offered a 25-year tax break as part of the deal.

"When we really started to look into the deal, we noticed that it was China, not Gabon, that was the major beneficiary," he said.

Under pressure

He and his colleagues embarked on their campaign, working with other environmental NGOs, holding news conferences and meeting with local communities.

"The government even motivated some protests against the NGOs involved," he recalled.

"They alleged that we were working [on behalf of] Western powers, and we received a lot of pressure to stop the campaign."

This culminated in Mr Ona being arrested and charged with "incitement to rebellion".

He was jailed by the Gabonese judicial police on 31 December 2008; but following an internationally co-ordinated campaign for his release, he was freed on 12 January 2009.

Since June 2006, however, he has been banned from travelling outside the country.

His passport was returned to him only 24 hours before he was due to travel to San Francisco for the Goldman award ceremony.

There has been no construction in Ivindo for almost a year, but Mr Ona says this has more to do with the economic crisis and the price of iron ore than with the Gabonese government backing down.

He has no plans to give up his quest.

"Some of the money from this award will go to the functioning of Brainforest, and the rest will be allocated to setting up small- and medium-sized businesses for local communities," he said.

"I want to set up a clinic near Ivindo where the local people can be treated using traditional medicine. Some of the money will serve to establish this health centre for all of those communities."

No fear

The organisers of the Goldman Prize describe the six winners as "a group of fearless grassroots leaders, taking on government and corporate interests and working to improve the environment for people in their communities".

Among the other 2009 recipients are Maria Gunnoe from West Virginia, US, who has faced death threats for her outspoken activism to stop destruction of the Appalachia by the coal industry.

Also rewarded are Russian scientist Olga Speranskaya, who connected NGOs across Eastern Europe and the Caucasus region to identify and safely remove toxic chemical stockpiles, and Rizwana Hasan, Bangladesh's leading environmental attorney, whose legal advocacy led to tighter regulations on the ship-breaking industry.