118 STAT. 459 PUBLIC LAW 108–200—FEB. 13, 2004 countries. This interest will be adversely impacted if current deforestation and wildlife depletion rates are not reversed. (9) Poorly managed and nonmanaged logging and hunting threatens to do to the Congo Basin what it did to West Africa, which lost much of its forest and wildlife through over exploi tation. (10) Purged of wildlife, some Congo Basin forests already are ‘‘empty forests’’. (11) In an attempt to conserve the forests of the Congo Basin, the region’s governments convened the Yaounde (Cam eroon) Forest Summit in March 1999. (12) In September 2002, Secretary of State Colin Powell launched the Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP) in Johan nesburg, South Africa. The CBFP promotes the conservation and sustainable use of the region’s forests, for example, by working to combat poaching, illegal logging, and other unsustainable practices, and giving local populations an eco nomic stake in the preservation of the forests, including through the development of ecotourism. (13)(A) The United States contribution to the CBFP will focus on conserving 11 key landscapes in 6 countries—Cam eroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of Congo—identified at the Yaounde Forest Summit as being of the greatest biological importance to the region. (B) The United States will fund field based activities within these 25,000,000 acres that aim to support a network of 27 national parks and protected areas and well managed forestry concessions. (C) In this way, the work will build on existing United States efforts, including those of the Central African Regional Program for the Environment (CARPE) of the United States Agency for International Development, which will implement the CBFP. (14) The CBFP has broad international financial support, including from non African governments, the European Commission, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and numerous nongovernment organizations. (15) A dramatic step toward conserving Congo Basin forests has recently been taken by Gabon. In September 2002, Presi dent Omar Bongo announced the creation of 13 national parks, representing over 10 percent of Gabon’s surface area. Pre viously, Gabon had no national park system. (16) With the CBFP and other initiatives, there exists unprecedented momentum for the conservation of Congo Basin forests. SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS. (a) IN GENERAL.—There are authorized to be appropriated to the President to carry out the Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP) program $18,600,000 for fiscal year 2004. (b) CARPE.—Of the amounts appropriated pursuant to the authorization of appropriations in subsection (a), $16,000,000 is authorized to be made available to the Central Africa Regional Program for the Environment (CARPE) of the United States Agency for International Development.
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