US EPA, INECE Conduct Principles of Enforcement Courses in Jordan and Bahrain

Workshop Participants

The workshops aimed at enabling participants to design strategies and programs to enforce environmental laws, regulations, and by-laws.

The workshop in Jordan was inaugurated by Khaled Irani, Minister of Environment at the Ministry of Environment. Irani announced that the Ministry is currently working on two by-laws: Water Protection and Environment Impact Assessment, saying that the two by-laws will be issued soon. He also expects that this workshop will conclude with a regional network of experts in environmental law enforcement.

Each course was attended by a mix of stakeholders from the host country and several other countries in the region. Between the two workshops, participants from the following countries attended: Jordan, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, the Palestinian Authority, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Oman.

In addition to the course, participants discussed additional capacity building and the need for a regional environmental enforcement network to support their work and sharing information in the region.

The effort was funded by the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Oceans, Environment, and Science and the Middle East Partnership Initiative, INECE. More information about the course can be found at http://inece.org/mena/.

The Swaziland Environmental Authority (SEA) was granted enforcement powers that will finally give it some teeth. "The previous board did not have the power to take action against offenders - we do not want to close down businesses, we only want them to comply with environmental regulations," said Minister of Environment and Tourism Thandi Shongwe.

Irma Allen was appointed chairman of the reconstituted SEA, which, 13 years after its establishment, has finally been given the power to levy fines. "Up to now, the SEA board has been a policy board; we now enter a new phase as a management board, guiding SEA from its transition as a government unit to a corporate body," said Allen.

In urban centers, environmental concerns have been handled by the respective municipalities, but the appearance of Swazi towns and roadsides is an indicator of public apathy toward a clean environment.

Unlike the country's network of public and private game parks and nature reserves, urban centers do not feature on tourists' destinations lists. Informal townships ring both Manzini and Mbabane , and uncoordinated rural development is spreading into marginal land unsuited to cultivation or human habitation.

The skies above Manzini and Matsapha are heavily polluted, while a doubling of registered cars in the past 10 years has created air quality problems in Mbabane , whose elevation traps air pollutants in the narrow mountain valleys of the capital.

However, with the SEA now armed with enforcement powers, the situation in the urban centers should improve, according to environmentalists.

A combination of natural and man-made threats is killing gorillas and chimpanzees in Central Africa , and experts say $30 million is needed for special programs to save some of mankind’s closest relatives from disappearing.

An action plan drafted by more than seventy primatologists and other experts who met in Brazzaville , Republic of Congo , in May, designates twelve areas for emergency programs intended to increase security against illegal hunting, protect great apes and tropical forests from logging, and slow the spread of the Ebola virus in the region.

Called the Regional Action Plan for Conservation of Chimpanzees and Gorillas in Western Equatorial Africa, the document seeks a multilateral response to the threats to populations of the western lowland gorilla and the central African chimpanzee that share the same habitat in six countries.

The plan represents an urgent appeal to the international community for immediate action, before the damage is irreversible. While the experts were unable to establish precise population figures for the gorillas and chimpanzees, they determined that recent Ebola outbreaks, bushmeat hunting and logging have almost wiped out some populations. The action plan notes that apes reproduce slowly, and therefore have a limited capacity to recover from decimated populations.

According to the action plan, a series of programs needed to halt declines in ape populations will cost just under $30 million. The measures include anti-poaching activities, improved monitoring and response to Ebola outbreaks, increased training, and tourism development.

The Brazzaville meeting was organized by the Centre International de Recherches Médicales de Franceville, Conservation International, the Wild Chimpanzee Foundation, and the Wildlife Conservation Society. Additional funding came from the Great Ape Conservation Fund of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the UNEP/UNESCO Great Ape Survival Project, the Cleveland Park Zoo, the Primate Action Fund and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

For more information, visit http://wildchimps.org.

In the village of Antanambe in northeastern Madagascar , seven elders troop into their office, a single-roomed cabin, to decide the fate of a farmer caught carrying two planks he had probably sawed from a tree after illegally cutting it down in the forest.

The farmer could face a fine of more than US $800. "For each wooden plank, the person has to pay a fine [equivalent to the penalty for] felling 400 trees, at the rate of 2,000 Ariary (just over US $1) per tree," explained Chief Baodine, the administrative head of the village.

Baodine heads one of the seven natural resource management committees comprised of elders, set up by the global conservation organization, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWFN), in villages around the Betaolana forest, which lies between the Marojejy and Anjanaharibe-Sud national parks near the town of Andapa .

The committees were established in 2002 under the Betaolana project, which kicked off in 1998. According to Didier Rabeviavy of the WWFN, Betaolana is the only surviving stretch of rain forest in an area where 100,000 people live.

"A high population growth rate of three percent has increased the pressure for tillable land; this promotes the felling of trees and threatens the future of the forest - we wanted the community to take up the initiative to police and protect their forests," he noted.

Local communities were keen on the idea of self-policing. "We know that without forests we will have no rain for our crops," commented Baodine, while the other members nodded in silent agreement.

The villagers are predominantly dependent on agriculture: they grow rice, beans, vegetables, coffee, bananas and vanilla, which is either sold at local markets or transported to the nearest city of Sambava , almost five hours by car from the area. Most of the villages are connected to each other by a network of paths.

The WWFN is attempting teach the villagers to breed fish in the rice paddies, "so they can have additional income or food until the crop is ready," said Rabeviavy.

Madagascar 's President Marc Ravalomanana has placed more than two-thirds of the country's remaining forest under formal protection. "But policing the protected areas remains problematic," a local conservationist observed.

"We know we have to look after our forests for our future generations," said Baodine, who often travels to neighboring villages to educate them on the need to protect the forests. There is hope yet in community-driven conservation.

A Conference of the Parliamentarians for Sustainable Development of Central African Forest Ecosystems is scheduled for November 2006 in Yaoundé, Cameron. This meeting follows the first conference, held four years ago, where participants launched a network of parliamentarians working on sustainable management of forest ecosystems

The conference's goal is to promote the application and harmonization of forestry laws and policies across ten Central African states, namely, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Chad, and Sao Tome and Principe.

The conference will also be used to strengthen the network of parliamentarians for more effective support of Ministries in charge of environment and forestry. This regional conference is jointly organized by the Cameroon Parliament and the IUCN Regional Office for Central Africa.

For more information, please contact: chantal.wandja@brac.iucn.org.