{"id":505,"date":"2018-04-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-04-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/uncategorized\/505\/drc-forest-minister-seeking-to-allocate-an-area-the-size-of-belgium-for-industrial-logging\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T07:23:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T07:23:16","slug":"drc-forest-minister-seeking-to-allocate-an-area-the-size-of-belgium-for-industrial-logging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/press\/505\/drc-forest-minister-seeking-to-allocate-an-area-the-size-of-belgium-for-industrial-logging\/","title":{"rendered":"DRC Forest Minister seeking to allocate an area the size of Belgium for industrial logging"},"content":{"rendered":"
Kinshasa, 16 April 2018 \u2013 Greenpeace Africa and Congolese non-governmental organisations have learned that a month after reinstating 650,000 ha of logging concessions deemed illegal and cancelled in 2016, DRC\u2019s Environment Minister sought authorisation from Prime Minister Bruno Tshibala to auction off fourteen other concessions covering an area the size of Belgium. The move violates a moratorium on new logging concessions put in place in 2002. Sixteen years later, forest governance is still non-existent. <\/p>\n

Last 1 March, Minister Amy Ambatobe wrote to Prime Minister Tshibala apprising him of his plan to tender all the titles that had passed a World Bank-sponsored legal review concluded in 2009 but that were subsequently surrendered to the State. Adjudication of the 3,100,000 ha would begin in the coming days. Later in the month, he proceeded to issue at least two 2018 cutting permits to the Chinese operators who saw their illegal titles reinstated in February. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear whether the Prime Minister has responded to the Minister\u2019s correspondence. The \u00a0signatories to this statement said, \u201cWe are urging Minister Ambatobe and Prime Minister Tshibala to cancel plans to auction these fourteen new logging titles. Proceeding with this plan will spell disaster for the world\u2019s second largest rainforest and deepen the chaos of a logging sector which only benefits a few industrial loggers and Kinshasa elites at the expense of local and indigenous communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The signatories will soon file a formal appeal before the Supreme Court to reverse the February reinstatement of the titles illegally awarded to Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 la Mill\u00e9naire Foresti\u00e8re (SOMIFOR) and Foresti\u00e8re pour le D\u00e9veloppement du Congo (FODECO). Union pour la Nation Congolaise (UNC) MP Juv\u00e9nal Munubo said he has raised a question in Parliament to Minister Ambatobe concerning the reinstatement of 650,000 ha of forestry concessions to two Chinese firms. <\/p>\n

Mr. Tshibala\u2019s role appears less decisive to the fate of the over three million hectares to be put up for bidding than that of N\u00e9h\u00e9mie Mwilanya, the cabinet director of President Kabila. \u00a0Following the 20 February publication of Greenpeace Africa\u2019s press release \u201cDRC government reinstates illegal logging concessions in breach of its own moratorium,<\/a>\u201d Mr. Mwilanya contacted Greenpeace Africa seeking confirmation that the 2002 moratorium had in fact been violated. \u00a0Greenpeace assured him this was the case and that we expected the government to ensure all breaches of the moratorium are sanctioned. <\/p>\n

Minister Ambatobe\u2019s plan is yet another snub to the donor community. In a letter addressed last 14 March to DRC\u2019s National REDD+ Fund, eleven donors decried the Ministry\u2019s disengagement from donor support, condemning the reallocation of the 650,000 ha and the hasty, pre-election revision of DRC\u2019s Forest Code, and threatened the suspension of \u201cseveral\u201d streams of funding. \u00a0The signatories appear to have been unaware of Mr. Ambatobe\u2019s 1 March letter to the Prime Minister.In an astonishing tirade to donors two weeks ago in Brazzaville, Mr. Ambatobe vowed that Norway\u2019s Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI), which suspended funding in February, wouldn\u2019t succeed in \u201crecolonising\u201d DRC. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe leniency of CAFI clearly emboldened the regime,\u201d state the signatories organisations of this statement. \u201cLast October, CAFI transferred $41 million to the National REDD+ Fund, almost half of which was for programs not yet approved. \u00a0And CAFI has acknowledged that its suspension of funding won\u2019t block expenditure of funds already disbursed.\u201d Despite the lack of commitment from the Congolese government to address corruption and impunity in the sector, CAFI is currently considering the approval of a project proposal from the French Development Agency that would support an expansion of industrial logging and facilitate the lifting of the moratorium that protects Congo\u2019s forests.<\/p>\n

Media contacts:
\n<\/strong>irene.wabiwa@greenpeace.org