The United States and the international conservation movement on Wednesday pledged a total of $73,5-million to save threatened Congo basin forests.
After the Amazon, the basin holds the world’s second largest block of intact and inter-connected tropical forests.
It faces serious challenges particularly from logging, and from bushmeat hunting which conservationists say has left vast tracts of land with plants but no animals.
US secretary of state Colin Powell announced in Johannesburg, where he has been attending the World Summit on Sustainable Development, that his government would commit at least $36-million over the next three years to the initiative, which South Africa had played a major part in getting under way.
He said the basin, which contained a quarter of the world’s tropical forest, was being degraded at the rate of two million acres every year.
”We must do something to preserve this global treasure,” he said.
The funds will be used to protect 11 priority areas in six countries –Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of Congo.
It was also announced on Wednesday that Conservation International, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the World Wildlife Fund intended to raise an additional US37,5-million over the next 10 years for their joint efforts in the Congo basin.
”Saving these key areas will make all the difference for the future of rain forest wild life in Africa.”
The US and NGO funds will support a wide range of activities in the 11 target areas, including the creation and management of protected areas, capacity building for local communities and development of an eco tourism industry.
The efforts are part of a broader partnership involving other governments, the private sector and additional NGOs that aims to support a network of up to 10 million hectares of national parks and protected areas, and up to 20 million hectares of ”multiple use” forests, at the same time promoting economic development, poverty alleviation and better governance for people who depend on natural resources for their livelihoods.
Veteran conservationist Jane Goodall said after Wednesday’s announcement: ”It’s fantastic, it’s overdue, it’s a beginning, and it’s definitely going to make a difference.
”I was in those forests just five weeks ago, and you know it’s like being in a cathedral.
”The fact that some of these forests are now going to be saved into the future is perhaps one of the highlights for me of the whole summit.”
The Congo basin hosts some of the most intriguing bio diversity in the world, ranging from forest elephants, bongos and chimpanzees, to forest buffaloes and Western lowland gorillas.
The bonobo, or pigmy chimpanzee, the closest living relative to humans and one of the most endangered apes in the world, is also found in this region. – Sapa