Valuing Conservation?

For the hundreds of thousands of Rwandans who live around Gishwati and downstream on its rivers, the dots are easy to connect. Most Rwandans are subsistence farmers, toiling in small fields (about one-half acre) to eke out enough to feed their families. The Gishwati Forest serves these farmers by absorbing and slowly releasing rainwater, preventing loss of topsoil and preventing sometimes disastrous landslides. The forest filters and purifies septic tank discharge and agricultural runoff. It produces organic material that enriches soil and recycles vital soil nutrients. Without the forest, as topsoil is washed away and loses nutrients, artificial fertilizers must be applied in an expensive and losing battle to maintain fertility. The effects of deforestation are also felt miles downstream because unchecked soil erosion caused by poor agricultural practice turns rivers coffee-brown, and hydroelectric and water-dependent factories (like a brewery) must close for months each year to clean the mud out of equipment.

Further, as trees and animals disappear, ecotourists are less likely to visit and spend money. Every lost acre of forest can cost Rwandans $800 per year. But the reverse is also true. Protecting the existing Gishwati Forest pumps almost $3,000,000 annually back into the Rwandan economy in the form of the ecological services it provides. Of course this must be balanced against the value of crops that could be grown and the lumber that could be harvested if the forest were cut. But as attractive as these profits are to a mother seeking to feed and educate her children, experience tells us they are one-time or non-sustainable profits. We are seeking ways to convert some of Gishwati’s hidden and long-term value into tangible payoffs for Rwandans. The local employment and spending that GACP provides is a big step in this direction.

Demonstrating the value of the Gishwati Forest to the rest of the world is more challenging. Some of us non-Rwandans genuinely care a lot about the chimpanzees and other animals and plants of Gishwati, and need no further reason to support its conservation from thousands of miles away. But in truth, most of us don’t.

We can point out that forests absorb carbon, and thus slow down the slowly rising temperature that is bringing noticeable volatility to our climate and is gradually causing sea levels to rise. But these effects are not yet serious enough to pose tangible threats to most of us, and some even remain unconvinced that global climate is changing dangerously as a result of human numbers and economic activity. Like the Rwandan mother, it’s hard for us to take the long view and change our behavior today. But by the time we do become convinced, damage to the environment might be so extensive that it can’t really be fixed.

Entrepreneur and author, Ray Anderson of Atlanta, Georgia said “the economy (including food production) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment.”  Everything we use and eat ultimately depends on clean water, clean air, fertile soil, pollination, and moderate temperatures. When these “ecosystem services” are interrupted, our very livelihoods suffer. Technology can help a bit (more abundant and disease-resistant crops, for example), but the Earth’s resources are limited. We know that as people become poor, they become desperate and will resort to warfare to get what they need to live. Rwanda is stable and at peace but armed conflict erupts frequently to the north and west. Wars may soon be fought over access to water and fossil fuels in some parts of the world. The entire United States Navy is going green because its leaders recognize that environmental degradation results in political instability and violence, and the Navy will only have more unpleasant work to do as environmental quality deteriorates.

So we don’t have to love chimpanzees to want to save Gishwati, and we don’t even have to believe that Gishwati and other forests are instrumental in arresting the climate change that most scientists believe threatens our farms, factories and cities. But every day’s headlines scream of the conflict that is caused in part by desperation and poverty, which in turn is caused in part by environmental destruction. Simply put, war is a result of the loss of forests like Gishwati.

View other sections of the Progress Report

• 2011 Project Overview
• Wildlife Corridor
• People and Wildlife