LIBREVILLE (AGP) – Gabon is subject to transnational organized criminal threats associated with its wildlife and forests, says the 2014 report of the Ministry of Water and Forests. This threat interacting with other criminal phenomena is dangerous for the ecological stability of the country despite a “multi-active bilateral technical cooperation and a clearly presidential will,” said the report, adding that the crime is not subject to appropriate judicial treatment.
According to the document, there is no denying that Gabon after Cameroon and Congo, became one of the largest central African victims of transnational crime including the ivory trade.
On December 10, 2012 in Malaysia and 18 July 2013 in Hong Kong, were respectively six and seized two tons of ivory, two shipments from the Port of Lomé. Analyses companies have appear as ivory seized in Hong Kong matched the genetic fingerprint of elephant of the Congo and Gabon populations.
Other wildlife species are a less bulky transnational trafficking whose importance is measured in terms of airport seizures, carried out in France, including several shipments of Pangolin scales (anteater), prized for their effect supposed aphrodisiac and anti-allergy order. There is no deforestation on but the forest is exploited so little control and many interactive criminal threats exercise it, the report said.
With about 22, 6 million hectares of forest and more than 885 km of coastline, Gabon has one of the highest biodiversity in the world with 700 species of birds, 98 species of amphibians, 95 to 160 reptiles, nearly 10 000 species of plants, more than 400 tree species and 198 different species of mammals.
There are many rare animal species such as Pangolin Gabon, or endemic species like the golden-tailed guenon. Its network of national parks, created in 2002 by the late President Omar Bongo Ondimba at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, covers about 11 percent of the country, 2.8 million hectares. Thirteen national parks that make up the network, five are coastal.
Despite a presidential voluntarism relayed extensively on the international stage, the Gabonese device called to deal with this threat – relevant legislation, justice and control – is unsatisfactory, the report said. This deficiency is expressed in terms of the legal arsenal on the functioning of the criminal justice system and that of the ability of law enforcement of the Act, the document concludes.
CSM / him / JPN
2015-03-04 12:11:57