[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 140 (Tuesday, October 7, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H9245-H9248]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONGO BASIN FOREST PARTNERSHIP ACT OF 2003
Mr. ROYCE. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 2264) to authorize appropriations for fiscal years 2004 and
2005 to carry out the Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP) program,
and for other purposes.
The Clerk read as follows:
H.R. 2264
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Congo Basin Forest
Partnership Act of 2003''.
[[Page H9246]]
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) The tropical forests of the Congo Basin, located in the
Central African countries of Cameroon, the Central African
Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial
Guinea, Gabon, the Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, and
Sao Tome/Principe, are second in size only to the tropical
forests of the Amazon Basin.
(2) These forests are a crucial economic resource for the
people of the Central African region.
(3) Congo Basin forests play a critical role in sustaining
the environment--absorbing carbon dioxide, cleansing water,
and retaining soil.
(4) Congo Basin forests contain the most diverse grouping
of plants and animals in Africa, including rare and
endangered species, such as the lowland gorilla, mountain
gorilla, chimpanzee, and okapi. These plants and animals are
invaluable for many reasons, including their genetic and
biochemical information, which could spark advances in
medical, agricultural, and industrial technology.
(5) Logging operations, driven by a growing global demand
for tropical hardwoods, are shrinking these forests. One
estimate has logging taking out Congo Basin forest area at a
rate of twice the size of the State of Rhode Island every
year.
(6) The construction of logging roads and other
developments are putting intense hunting pressure on
wildlife. At current hunting levels, most species of apes and
other primates, large antelope, and elephants will disappear
from the Congo Basin, with some becoming extinct.
(7) If current deforestation and wildlife depletion rates
are not reversed, the six countries of the Congo Basin most
immediately, but also the world, will pay an immense
economic, environmental, and cultural price.
(8) The United States has an interest in seeing political
stability and economic development advance in the Congo Basin
countries. This interest will be adversely impacted if
current deforestation and wildlife depletion rates are not
reversed.
(9) Poorly managed and nonmanaged logging and hunting
threatens to do to the Congo Basin what it did to West
Africa, which lost much of its forest and wildlife through
over-exploitation.
(10) Purged of wildlife, some Congo Basin forests already
are ``empty forests''.
(11) In an attempt to conserve the forests of the Congo
Basin, the region's governments convened the Yaounde
(Cameroon) Forest Summit in March 1999.
(12) In September 2002, Secretary of State Colin Powell
launched the Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP) in
Johannesburg, South Africa. The CBFP promotes the
conservation and sustainable use of the region's forests, for
example, by working to combat poaching, illegal logging, and
other unsustainable practices, and giving local populations
an economic stake in the preservation of the forests,
including through the development of ecotourism.
(13)(A) The United States contribution to the CBFP will
focus on conserving 11 key landscapes in 6 countries--
Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the
Republic of Congo--identified at the Yaounde Forest Summit as
being of the greatest biological importance to the region.
(B) The United States will fund field-based activities
within these 25,000,000 acres that aim to support a network
of 27 national parks and protected areas and well-managed
forestry concessions.
(C) In this way, the work will build on existing United
States efforts, including those of the Central African
Regional Program for the Environment (CARPE) of the United
States Agency for International Development, which will
implement the CBFP.
(14) The CBFP has broad international financial support,
including from non-African governments, the European
Commission, the International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development, and numerous nongovernment organizations.
(15) A dramatic step toward conserving Congo Basin forests
has recently been taken by Gabon. In September 2002,
President Omar Bongo announced the creation of 13 national
parks, representing over 10 percent of Gabon's surface area.
Previously, Gabon had no national park system.
(16) With the CBFP and other initiatives, there exists
unprecedented momentum for the conservation of Congo Basin
forests.
SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.
(a) In General.--There are authorized to be appropriated to
the President to carry out the Congo Basin Forest Partnership
(CBFP) program $18,600,000 for each of the fiscal years 2004
and 2005. Of the amounts appropriated pursuant to the
authorization of appropriations under the preceding sentence
for a fiscal year, $16,000,000 is authorized to be made
available to the Central Africa Regional Program for the
Environment (CARPE) of the United States Agency for
International Development.
(b) Availability.--Amounts appropriated pursuant to the
authorization of appropriations under subsection (a) are
authorized to remain available until expended.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
California (Mr. Royce) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos)
each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce).
General Leave
Mr. ROYCE. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their
remarks on H.R. 2264.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from California?
There was no objection.
Mr. ROYCE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
This bill, H.R. 2264, authorizes the administration's Congo Basin
Forest Partnership. It is authored by the gentleman from Florida (Mr.
Shaw), who is an international conservation leader. I am a cosponsor of
this measure, and I think the importance of it is that the tropical
forests of central Africa's Congo Basin are a key economic resource for
an estimated 20 million people, and these forests play a very critical
role in sustaining the environment.
The Congo Basin contains the most diverse grouping of plants and
animals in all of Africa, including many rare and endangered species.
These plants and animals are invaluable for so many reasons, including
their genetic and biological information which could spark technical
advances in medicine and agriculture.
This is all threatened, though, as Congo Basin forests are coming
under growing pressure. Ten years ago, these forests were virtually
untouched. Today, logging operations are shrinking these forests. As a
matter of fact, logging operations are taking out the Congo Basin
forest at the rate of twice the size of Rhode Island every year.
Meanwhile, the construction of logging roads is putting intense hunting
pressure on wildlife. At current levels, because of poaching, most
species of apes, large antelope, and elephants will disappear from the
Congo Basin, as well as the white rhino, and some will become extinct.
Last September, Secretary of State Powell launched the Congo Basin
Forest Partnership in Johannesburg. This partnership is focused on 11
key landscapes in 6 different countries. It aims to support a network
of national parks and protected areas and well-managed forestry
concessions. The partnership is working to combat illegal logging and
illegal poaching and other unsustainable practices and to give local
populations an economic stake in the preservation of the forests,
including through the development of ecotourism. This is a true
partnership, with European and other countries making financial
contributions to it.
I should note that the most dramatic move toward conserving Congo
Basin forests has been taken by Gabon. Last year, President Omar Bongo
announced the creation of 13 separate national parks in his country.
Previously, Gabon had no national parks system. With this partnership,
there is a real African buy-in.
The Subcommittee on Africa that I chair held a hearing on this
initiative in March. Testifying before us was world-renowned ecologist
Michael Fay. Michael has traveled many of Africa's forests, especially
in the Congo Basin, and has had several of his treks covered by
National Geographic. I am pleased that the House is acting today to
pass this bill. It supports conservation efforts by him and others
which have come, in Michael's case, at great personal sacrifice.
Conservation is not easy. What Americans take for granted, Yosemite,
Yellowstone and our magnificent national park system, took great
foresight. It took a great political commitment to make that a reality.
We led the world in the United States. It will be a major challenge to
establish and maintain effective regimes to control logging and to
control hunting in the Congo Basin; but with the partnership, the U.S.
is bringing its unique experience and talents to these efforts.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. LANTOS. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I strongly support H.R. 2264 and urge all of my colleagues to vote
for it.
Madam Speaker, first, I want to thank my friend, Secretary of State
Colin Powell, and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw) and the
gentleman
[[Page H9247]]
from New Jersey (Mr. Payne) for making the preservation of the Congo
River Basin a priority. The Congo River and its tributaries make up the
most extensive network of navigable waterways in Africa and carry a
volume of water second only to the Amazon River.
Some of us think first of the Congo River Basin as one of the largest
and most important ecological regions of the world, which it is; but
what is even more important, it is the home to some of the world's
poorest people who have suffered some of Africa's bloodiest conflicts.
Madam Speaker, more than 2\1/2\ million people have perished in
eastern Congo as a result of the most recent Congo civil war, with
millions left displaced and in unimaginable destitution. Throughout the
central African region, poverty rates are among the worst on this
globe. Life expectancy ranges from 42 years in the Central African
Republic to 52 years in the Congo Republic.
The overall forest area of the Congo River Basin is declining rapidly
as a result of unchecked growth of timber exports, destructive
agricultural expansion, and fueled with demand for a growing
population. Madam Speaker, these practices are unsustainable if the
assets of the Congo River Basin are to be used to improve and sustain
the lives of the people who live there.
Our legislation represents a unique opportunity to help the people of
central Africa turn their biggest asset, the natural resources of the
Congo River Basin, into a viable economic base. The Congo Basin
partnership is an economic development and conservation program for the
six countries of central Africa. This partnership will combine the
preservation of some of the world's richest and most pristine
ecosystems with economic development in order to alleviate the
desperate poverty that permeates the region.
Conservation programs will help develop a network of national parks
and protected areas and help local communities manage the forests and
wildlife more rationally. The people of central Africa, some of whom
live on less than 25 cents per day, 25 cents per day, will be able to
develop sustainable means of livelihood through conservation
agriculture and integrated ecotourism programs.
Madam Speaker, the stewardship of the Congo River Basin is the joint
responsibility of central African countries and the international
community. Together, we must end the deforestation and wildlife
depletion and support the appropriate use of forest resources.
I enthusiastically support this bill and urge all of my colleagues to
vote in favor of its passage.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. ROYCE. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
California (Mr. Doolittle), who has traveled to sub-Saharan Africa to
see how Africans can better protect their endangered species.
Mr. DOOLITTLE. Madam Speaker, I join with my colleagues and commend
the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce), the gentleman from
California (Mr. Lantos), and the authors of the bill, the gentleman
from Florida (Mr. Shaw) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne),
for this legislation.
Africa has obviously some tremendous natural resources. They have
enormous problems. They have a lack of freedom in that continent and
throughout most of the countries indeed of the continent, and this
legislation will help those people help themselves by conserving their
forests.
Let me say, I am a strong logging advocate, but logging has to be
done right; and this legislation will help set that up so that we will
have logging and replanting, so that we will have sustainable forest
practices so that this natural resource is available for the present
generation and for generations to come. This is a goal that we seek to
have here, and we do have it here in the United States; and we would
like to help the people in the Congo River Basin to enjoy this as well.
I am sad to tell my colleagues that when we do not have good
practices, devastating results can occur. We see that, for example, in
the country of Zimbabwe, which was once my pleasure to visit, presently
we have a brutal dictator, anarchy reigns, and a ruling elite has taken
over safari parks for their own personal hunting grounds. We have
settlers invading privately owned game preserves and decimating the
remaining stock of protected animals such as the black rhinoceros. We
have poachers setting on fire places like the Matobo Hills in the south
of the country. Indeed, this year that area was designated a World
Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization; and yet these illegal poachers are destroying
not only thousands of acres of national park there but killing vast
stocks of wildlife, many of which are endangered species.
Madam Speaker, this area of the Congo is different than Zimbabwe, but
the principles are the same. We seek to apply good principles to help
the people lift themselves and to grow and to develop and to achieve
better health and longer life spans, and it will help them do it using
their natural resources. In like fashion, we hope that other
enlightened policies around the continent can be applied so that people
will be able to enjoy in a better fashion the rights that God has given
them.
I am delighted to join with my colleagues in supporting this
legislation.
Mr. LANTOS. Madam Speaker, we have no additional requests for time,
and I yield back the balance of our time.
Mr. ROYCE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
In closing, unfortunately, Africa is not the only continent under
attack.
{time} 1645
Increasingly, we are seeing the link between resource exploitation
and human rights abuses and conflict and corruption. This past weekend,
the Financial Times previewed a new report to be released next week by
Global Witness. The report details how the ruling military junta in
Burma is using logging concessions to help maintain its grip on power.
In Burma's environmentally-damaging resource diplomacy, Chinese logging
companies are granted concessions to large sections of Burmese virgin
forest in exchange for political loyalty and in exchange for material
support.
In light of this sort of activity, the Congo Basin Forest Partnership
and similar initiatives are all that much more important, and I want to
thank Members in this body for what they are attempting to do in
passing this legislation and urge the support of every Member.
Mr. SHAW. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2264, the
Congo Basin Forest Partnership Act of 2003, which I introduced to
authorize funding for the Congo Basin Forest Partnership Fund (CBFP)
for fiscal years 2004 and 2005.
The CBFP strives to preserve and protect millions of acres of lands
in Africa by establishing a network of national parks. The CBFP is
focused on eleven key landscapes in Cameroon, Central African Republic,
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the
Republic of Congo.
Madam Speaker, I have traveled to Africa numerous times and have
experienced the immense beauty and wonder that the continent holds. I
have also witnessed how poaching and cross-cutting of forests
devastates the natural wildlife, the land and the people of Africa. One
of America's greatest assets is our national parks and conservation
system. I can think of no better way to help Africa, and the African
people, than to provide them with the tools to conserve their great
continent, just as we do in our National Park Service.
Conservation efforts through the CBFP not only provide protections
for lands and wildlife but also provide critical means for human
development, political stability and economic growth in Africa--areas
that remain tremendously important to the success of Africa.
This initiative has received widespread support from Republicans,
Democrats, and leading organizations including Conservation
International, the World Conservation Society, and the World Wildlife
Fund. I urge my colleagues to support the Congo Basin Forest
Partnership Act of 2003 and the betterment of the African people.
Mr. TANNER. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2264, the
Congo Basin Forest Partnership Act of 2003. Having personally visited
some of the areas that this bill will help to protect, I highly
recommend it to the House, and hope that others will join in support of
this effort.
Secretary of State Colin Powell launched the Congo Basin Forest
Partnership initiative that has swiftly grown into a bipartisan
multinational effort to support national parks and
[[Page H9248]]
well-managed forestry practices in the forests of the Congo Basin in
Central Africa. The International Conservation Caucus, of which I am a
founding member and co-chair, was formed in order to build support for
the Congo Basin Forest Partnership initiative, and to help with other
international conservation efforts in some of the most environmentally
sensitive areas around the world. In the mission statement of the
International Conservation Caucus, it is written that as members we
share a conviction that the United States has the opportunity and the
obligation to advance the protection of the worldwide environment for
current and future generations. The mission of the Caucus is to act on
this conviction by providing the strong U.S. leadership necessary to
conserve the world's most biologically rich and diverse places. The
Congo Basin Forest Partnership Act is one of the first steps in
achieving our mission of international conservation, and I wish to
thank my friend Clay Shaw for recognizing this need and for introducing
this important bipartisan bill.
The United States' contribution to the CBFP will focus on providing
field-based conservation activities within 25,000,000 acres in
Cameroon, The Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo. Forests
in these six countries are being depleted at alarming rates. It is
estimated that forest areas in the Congo Basin are being depleted at a
rate twice the size of Rhode Island every year. The author of H.R. 2264
says it best in section 7 of the findings of the bill. It states, ``If
current deforestation and wildlife depletion rates are not reversed,
the six countries of the Congo Basin most immediately, but also the
world, will pay an immense economic, environmental, and cultural price.
Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to vote in favor of H.R. 2264, the
Congo Basin Forest Partnership Act.
Mr. ROYCE. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Capito). The question is on the motion
offered by the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce) that the House
suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 2264.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor
thereof) the rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________