Reports have indicated that the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is considering to lift a long-standing ban on the expansion of industrial logging in its rainforests.
In a statement made available on Wednesday, October 6, 2021, Rainforest Rescue, an environmental organization, urged the DRC’s international development partners to demand that the DRC government keep its logging ban in place. The organization said it was seeking support to a petition, titled: “Congo rainforest to be felled despite international climate funding? Help us stop it!” as part of efforts to dissuade the DRC government from making the move.
The group called on the international community to insist that the logging moratorium stay in place, noting that over tens of millions of hectares of virgin forest will be handed over to loggers which will lead to the destruction of the ecosystem while also destroying local peoples’ livelihoods.
Bettina Behrend who works with the organization, said that Congo Basin Forest in Central Africa, which is believed to be the second largest rainforest on the planet, is home to a diversity of species, including chimpanzees, bonobos and forest elephants.
They are also home to millions of people and store countless gigatons of carbon. He noted that international donorr agencies have been giving the DRC hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to protect its forest to help prevent climate-changing emissions from doforestation. “Despite this, the DRC government is considering lifting a long-standing ban on the expansion of industrial logging in its rainforests,” Behrend said. “This could imperil an area of tropical forest the size of France”.
He maintained that opening some of the world’s last remaining intact tropical forests to industrial logging would be a disaster as tens of millions of hectares of virgin forest could be handed over to the loggers – destroying the ecosystem and local peoples’ livelihoods while fuelling climate change.
The group further noted that any lifting of the ban, which could imperil an area of tropical forest the size of France, may also increase the risk of future outbreaks of zoonotic diseases such as Ebola and COVID-19. “Opening up the forests to industrial logging would be an unmitigated disaster for the climate, biodiversity, rule of law, and human rights of forest communities “it said.
