VZCZCXRO4957
RR RUEHBZ RUEHGI RUEHMA
DE RUEHBZ #0349/01 3480715
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 140715Z DEC 09
FM AMEMBASSY BRAZZAVILLE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1644
INFO RUEHYD/AMEMBASSY YAOUNDE 0076
RUEHLC/AMEMBASSY LIBREVILLE 0069
RUEHKI/AMEMBASSY KINSHASA 0551
RUEHGI/AMEMBASSY BANGUI 0046
RUEHMA/AMEMBASSY MALABO 0019
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS 0051
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 0515
RUEHBZ/AMEMBASSY BRAZZAVILLE 2058

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BRAZZAVILLE 000349 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EAGR EAID CF CT CG CM GB
SUBJECT: (SBU) EUROPEAN UNION ASSESSES SUPPORT TO NATIONAL PARKS 
 
1.(SBU) Summary: The European Union has supported a selected 
number of national parks in Central Africa beginning in 1992 
through a series of projects termed by the French acronym ECOFAC 
 (Conservation and Valuing Forest Ecosystems in Central Africa). 
 The current phase, ECOFAC IV, is nearing the final stage and 
therefore the European Commission (EC) held a broad-ranging 
discussion and review of the progress, challenges and next steps 
in Brazzaville on December 9-10.  ECOFAC IV targeted 8 national 
parks in 7 Central African countries including the UN-designated 
Biosphere Reserve Odzala National Park in Northeastern Republic 
of Congo, a park noted for large populations of western lowland 
gorillas and forest elephants.  So far none of the models 
attempted by ECOFAC show promise of being either financially or 
technically sustainable, though recently they have make 
considerable effort to develop means to support local 
communities in an attempt to reduce poaching and environmental 
degradation in and around park areas (End Summary). 
 
2.(SBU) ECOFAC supports the Congo Basin Forest Partnership 
 
The EC implements the ECOFAC project through a single European 
technical assistance consulting company procured through a 
competitive contract for which the contractor deploys personnel 
to support the targeted park network.  A management team is 
based in Libreville, Gabon and expatriate technical advisers are 
posted to each of the targeted parks.  Each of the four ECOFAC 
phases has involved separate contract solicitations through a 
tedious and lengthy process, accompanied by numerous contract 
disputes and slow mobilization of personnel.  These processes 
have caused long gaps when little support or no has been 
available.  The EC was prepared to terminate the program after 
ECOFAC III, but with the CBFP launching, was convinced to 
continue its involvement as a CBFP founding member. 
 
3.(SBU) The EC Takes Stock 
 
The meeting was billed as a regional technical monitoring 
committee session to compare notes on activities over the past 
three years of the ECOFAC IV project, to assess project status 
toward reaching the objectives and sharing technical lessons 
with ECOFAC staff, national park staff and park services 
managers of the seven countries Central Africa Republic, 
Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, 
Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Sao Tome Principe). A selected 
number of invited participants, including the USAID/Central 
Africa Regional Program for the Environment (CARPE) director 
were invited. A second day closed session was limited to the 
actual implementing partners, but was to focus on future 
financing methods and to consider how the investments can become 
technically and financially sustainable. 
 
4.(SBU) RAPAC to the Rescue? 
 
The EC has established a regional NGO based in Libreville known 
by its French acronym RAPAC (Network for the Protected Areas of 
Central Africa) with the view of using it to channel funding 
directly to the national administrations of the targeted parks. 
Now in its seventh year, the EC hopes that for any future EC 
financial support, the RAPAC channel will bypass the tedious and 
ineffective contracting systems that have been fraught with 
difficulties and are widely considered to result in disruptive 
and ineffective support.  While it is not clear whether RAPAC 
will be tapped by the EC to take on this role at the end of 
ECOFAC IV, the RAPAC clearly has ambitions to play a much larger 
role.  RAPAC has been accepted as a subsidiary organization 
under the Ministerial Commission for Central African Forests 
(COMIFAC), and therefore it is politically poised to play a more 
active role in regional protected area management.  (Comment: 
RAPAC remains a very weak organization and it is highly unlikely 
it will have the capacity in the near term to play a significant 
technical role, and its capacity to manage finances is also not 
yet tested). 
 
5.(SBU) Sustainability is Elusive 
 
The technical presentations painted a disappointing picture of 
both the technical and financially sustainability of ECOFAC 
efforts to date.  A great deal of concern was registered over 
the fragile nature of the two parks in Central African Republic, 
given extremely strong poaching and human pressures in the 
surrounding areas and the lack of alternative livelihoods for 
the thousands of poor rural villagers who have increasingly 
surrounded the parks, apparently creating extreme pressure on 
both the wildlife and the forests.  Suppression of wildlife and 
wood harvesting of the local people through ecoguard patrols has 
reportedly resulted in ever increasing hostility toward park 
 
BRAZZAVILL 00000349  002 OF 002 
 
 
authorities and more difficulties.  In the last few years, 
ECOFAC has increasingly tried to find means to provide more 
alternative opportunities to village residents through tourism, 
for example safari hunting revenue sharing (Note: one 
French-owned safari company, RED Buffalo CAR has developed a 
scheme in northern CAR with ECOFAC support whereby tourist 
hunting revenue is paid directly to local village 
organizations).  One of the parks with fewer local resident 
pressures is the Odzala National Park in NE ROC.  This is part 
of the Congo Basin Forest Partnership TRIDOM landscape with 
major technical and financial support through CARPE partner 
Wildlife Conservation Society (WSCS) in the community zones and 
a major logging concession by the Danzer group in contiguous 
areas to the south and east of the park.  (Comment: WCS believes 
that the CARPE support and the collaboration with the private 
logging companies in the periphery of Odzala have played a much 
more important role in maintaining wildlife populations in the 
park than the ECOFAC park activities. End Comment). 
 
6.(SBU) The way forward 
 
The EC would like to continue to support the park development in 
Central Africa though they have not found a sustainable formula 
after nearly 20 years since the first ECOFAC phase.  The EC is 
also supporting protected areas through bilateral programs in 
ROC (a project to develop a new government park and wildlife 
service) and the DRC (direct euro 50 million over five years for 
four major parks (Garamba, Virunga, Salonga and Upemba).  They 
have tried several models including contracting park management 
to the NGO Africa Parks in the case of Garamba and direct 
support to the DRC park service in Virunga.  A financially and 
technically sustainable model is still not on the horizon, 
though the region is rich in different models which are expected 
to serve as a laboratory for the long term. 
 
(drafted:  CARPE JFlynn) 
EASTHAM