Why: The Congo Basin Forest is the second largest rainforest on
the planet. In the DR Congo alone, 40 million people depend on the
forests for their livelihoods. Forests are vital for our global
climate: An estimated 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions
are caused by deforestation and land use change.The World Bank has
for many years been the driving force behind failed “Forest Reform”
in Central Africa, allowing the large scale expansion of industrial
logging into intact rainforests and causing massive releases of
greenhouse gases.As a result, in 2002, the DRC issued a moratorium
on new logging concessions, with the help of the World Bank, a law
that Greenpeace applauded. However, the moratorium was breached and
the Congo government is now considering lifting it entirely, which
would open up vast areas of intact rainforests to international
logging companies. Cameroonian activists are acting in solidarity
with Congolese groups and communities, and calling on the World
Bank and governments not to repeat the same mistakes they made in
Cameroon. The moratorium on new logging concessions must stay in
place until meaningful control is established in the Congo forest
and until a land use plan is in place, based on the needs of the
Congolese poor.
Who: Delegation from Africa
Samuel Nguiffo, CameroonSamuel Nguiffo, winner of the Goldman
Environmental Award for Africa 1999, continues to be one of the
most effective NGO-voices from the African continent. A lawyer by
training, Nguiffo has devoted himself to the Herculean task of
stopping the liquidation of the region’s forests for short-term
profit. As the Director of the Center for Environment and
Development (CED) in Yaounde, he has worked tirelessly to defend
the rights of indigenous peoples and to protect the rainforests.
Nguiffo and his team at CED also assist forest communities with
income-generating activities such as bee-keeping and sustainable
use of non-timber forest products. Becoming aware that the vast
forests of the Congo are now threatened by the same drivers that
have been destroying the forests and their communities over many
years, he decided to reach out to his colleagues in the Congo and
to support, among others, the trans-african alliance “Kids for
Forests”. Today he is urging governments and Finance Institutions
not to repeat the same mistakes in Congo that have been made in
Cameroon. Nguiffo has represented Africa’s forest countries at
multiple international for a and is a member of the Environmental
Law Alliance Worldwide (E-LAW), a network of environmental lawyers
from 50 countries.
Christian Ebanda, Cameroon20 year-old student Christian Ebanda
is in his last year at the Lycée Bilingue in Yaounde, and has been
an active environmentalist throughout his student life. From
2000-2003 he was the President of the Environmental Club in his
school, and he has been a leading activists with “Kids for Forests”
for six years, organizing youth reforestation camps. Together with
his Congolese colleagues, he has been instrumental in drafting the
petition to the World Bank President and to collect thousands of
signatures for it all over the country to help protect the Congo’s
forests. He is part of the annual parade of “Forest Ambassadors”,
who travel to villages all over Cameroon to bring educational
material and discuss the importance of the forest with young
community members. He was one out of two Cameroonians who
represented his country at a major international treaty negotiation
on Biodiversity in Brazil in 2006.
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VVPR info: Contact: Daniel Kessler, Greenpeace, (970) 690-2728 (cell)
Notes: More information on deforestation in the Congo can be found at www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/forests/africa/congo-report More information on Greenpeace’s Kids for Forests program can be found at www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/forests/kff
