Africa: Marc Ona Essangui, Libreville, Gabon: In Gabon, a West African country without a culture of civic engagement, Marc Ona, who uses a wheelchair for mobility, is leading efforts to expose the unlawful agreements behind a Chinese mining project that threatens the ecosystems of Gabon's equatorial rainforests.
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Marc Ona Essangui |
Ona is president and founder of the environmental NGO Brainforest and president of Environment Gabon. He faces arrest, imprisonment and public character assaults for his campaign to protect Ivindo National Park with its forest elephants, western lowland gorillas, chimpanzees, forest buffalo and Kongou and Mingouli Falls, the most admired waterfalls in Africa's forests.
The proposed Belinga development, a $3.5 billion project that includes a mine, a dam, railroads and a port, has been negotiated in secret. Affected communities were not consulted and are unaware of the potential impacts that the dam and mining concession would have on their environment.
In July 2007, the Chinese company CMEC, in violation of Gabon's Environment Code, began constructing a road through Ivindo National Park to the waterfalls without any environmental impact assessment. The project could lead to the declassification of the national parks system and leave vulnerable ecosystems exposed to logging and other destructive industries.
In 2007, Ona located a leaked copy of the Belinga mine agreement between the government and CMEC which stated that Gabon would receive only 10 percent of the mining profits while CMEC would receive a 25-year tax break.
Due to Ona's efforts, the government is re-evaluating the Belinga concession. The area to be affected by the dam project has been reduced from 5,700 to 600 square kilometers. The road through Ivindo Park was rerouted through less of the protected area, and President Omar Bongo agreed to place two representatives of local NGOs from Environment Gabon on a project monitoring committee.
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