Video: Forests in the DRC Under Threat
As the plane from Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) makes its descent towards the airport in Mbandaka, the capital of Equateur province, I was impressed by a beautiful canopy of greenery that paints the landscape below my window; I was looking at the Congo Basin Forest. A casual observer sees a forest, nice and robust, full of life. But I know it is a fragile forest that could lose one of its best protection measures soon if we do not fight for it.
After the war in the DRC in 2002, under pressure from the World Bank, the Congolese government suspended the awarding of new industrial logging concessions. One of the primary objectives of this Moratorium (a temporary stop until certain conditions are fulfilled) placed 15 years ago, was to embark on a path whereby the forest sector would become a sustainable industry, generating billions of dollars in revenues and tens of thousands of jobs.
Due to inaction to embark on participatory zoning on potential concession areas; failure to establish a three-year rolling plan indicating the exact number, areas and locations where concessions would be gradually awarded; and failure to build institutional capacity to regulate, monitor and control commercial forestry, the moratorium has remained in place for all these 15 years, and continuously helped to preserve Congolese forest and prohibits the expansion of logging concessions.
JB Dodane