Minister raises alarm over threats to world’s second largest rainforest in Congo
By Nneka Nwogwugwu
Gabon’s Minister of Water, Forests, the Sea, and Environment, Lee White, has raised alarm over threats to world’s second Largest Rainforest located in Congo.
“Given the size of the Congo Basin, it stores about 10 years of global carbon emissions equivalent, so if we lose the Congo Basin forests, if they go up into the atmosphere, then we lose the fight against climate change,” Gabon’s Minister of Water, Forests, the Sea, and Environment, Lee White, told Sky News.
“These rainforests are helping to regulate the rainfall across Africa… they feed water into the Blue Nile. The rainforest is the heart and lungs of Africa, and it is maintaining the stability of the African continent,’’ he added.
Plans to lift a longterm logging ban in the the Democratic Republic of the Congo are currently in the works, though environmentalists hope it’s in the best interest of the rainforest.
According to New Sky, the 2002 logging moratorium was instated to conserve 70 million hectares of rainforest. Supposedly, though, the government is lifting the ban to find $1 billion in funding for stronger forest protections, from the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI) at COP26 in November.
Environment and Vice Prime Minister, Eve Bazaiba allegedly isn’t approving any logging projects at the moment, to solve disagreements regarding issues regarding land management.
Concerning the National Geographic, she promises the moratorium, which was temporary from the beginning, will be replaced with more permanent and expansive conservation efforts.
“When I speak of removing the ban, people say, ‘It’s over, Congo will award concessions to whoever.’ It’s not true,” she told National Geographic.
The DRC plans to establish carbon tax and to increase communication between government agencies. However, environmentalists believe the DRC shouldn’t lift the ban until a new, more permanent plan is found to protect the rainforest, as opening it to logging would be seriously devastating.
“The government keeps saying that the DRC will go to the COP26 as a ‘solution country’ to climate change, since the Congo stores so much carbon,” Greenpeace Africa’s Irène Wabiwa Betoko told National Geographic.
