#AfricaClimateCrisis - DR Congo Shields Its Rainforests For Now

President Félix Tshisekedi has received praise from Greenpeace Africa for his decision on October 15, 2021 to suspend all dubious logging concessions by multinationals in the DR Congo, including six that were approved by the country's former environment minister Claude Nyamugabo Bazibuhe in September 2020. 

However, his government is considering lifting a long-standing ban on the expansion of industrial logging in its rainforests. Tens of millions of hectares of virgin forest could be handed over to the loggers, destroying the ecosystem and local peoples' livelihoods while fueling climate change.

Tropical forests are well known for being the "lungs" of our planet. Through photosynthesis, the trees in these forests produce oxygen and remove enormous amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, helping to mitigate global warming.

For millions of people who depend on the forest for their livelihoods, including Indigenous Peoples, selling it off to multinationals has meant land grabs, displacement and destitution. And bulldozing the rainforest will likely mean less rain. The Congo Basin forest is estimated to contribute more than half of the annual precipitation in Sub-Saharan Africa, an area already facing a plethora of droughts and extreme heat waves.

Greenpeace Africa, one of the civil society organizations that denounced these concessions, applauds the decision taken by Tshisekedi and encourages him to remain vigilant and ensure its effective execution by Deputy Prime Minister Eve Bazaiba.