Halt! Who Goes There?

By EUGENE LINDEN

All conservationists want to preserve the Ndoki, but they're not all convinced that the current plan is the right way. Will the proposed park encompassing 450,000 hectares (1.1 million acres) in the forest core be a safe refuge? Or will it bring hordes of loggers, developers and tourists into the surrounding territory?

Most controversial is the involvement of the World Bank, which administers the Global Environment Facility, the Ndoki park's main sponsor. The bank has been notorious for financing ecologically damaging dams, highways and other grandiose projects all over the globe. Even park proponent Michael Fay admits that asking the bank to protect a pristine area is "a little like giving a bank robber a million dollars to install your security system."

But Fay says criticism has spurred the World Bank to mend its ways. And on close inspection, many of the concerns about the bank's role turn out to be unfounded. For instance, critics such as Greenpeace have argued that the Ndoki park proposal is linked with a loan to Congo that would promote logging. In fact, there is no linkage, and the loan has been tabled because Congo is behind on paying debts. Opponents have also contended that plans for building a road and improving the navigability of the Ndoki River will open the area to those who would exploit it. The feared road, however, is only a Wildlife Conservation International project to improve marginally a dirt path for moving supplies, and the proposal to clear vegetation from the river is simply a WCI plan to remove some fallen trees so that a pirogue can travel between research camps.

Fay concedes that the plan involves compromises and depends on the future good faith of the Congolese government, which is currently racked by turmoil and corruption. Once Congo elects a new government, the strong arm of the World Bank could prove helpful in ensuring that the country honor agreements prohibiting any economic activity in the core area.

The most delicate issue is how to prevent the region from being overrun by immigrants. Scientific research and limited tourism will provide job opportunities for some of the 250 Pygmies who live in nearby Bomassa, but probably not enough to attract a large wave of newcomers. Of the three merchants who moved into Bomassa anticipating a boom, two have already relocated in disappointment. That's just fine with the park advocates, whose purpose is not to create new fortunes but to save the Ndoki's irreplaceable natural treasures. -- E.L.