The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) will assist 10 countries in central Africa with establishing advanced national forest monitoring systems.
The countries are Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Rwanda and São Tomé and Principe, an island in the Gulf of Guinea.
Under the plan, FAO will provide technical support to the countries, enabling them to use REDD+ initiative (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries). It will also help strengthen regional cooperation and experience sharing, according to FAO.
The forests of Africa's Congo Basin are one of the world's largest primary rainforests, second only to the Amazon. The region's forests support the livelihoods of some 60 million people, according to FAO. According to data provided by Central Africa Forests Commission (COMIFAC), the gross deforestation annual rate in Congo Basin was 0.13 percent between 1990 and 2000 and it doubled in the period of 2000-2005.
"Although this deforestation rate is relatively low, the main threats to these forests include land-use change, unsustainable logging and mining," FAO said in a statement. "The impact of the direct threats, the rates of forest cover change and the subsequent emissions from deforestation and forest degradation activities remain poorly understood partly due to the lack of up-to-date and accurate information on the current state of forests in the region."
The project will be managed jointly by COMIFAC and FAO in close collaboration with the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE). Also, the Congo Basin Forests Fund, launched by the Norway and the United Kingdom through the African Development Bank, is funding the initiative with the equivalent of $7.5 million.
