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The College of International NGOs of the CBFP mobilized, in close line with the Facilitator of the Federal Republic of Germany of the CBFP, Dr. Christian Ruck
The Largest participation of the Members ever of the international NGOs CBFP College and revitalization of the process towards a common position of the Partnership CBFP and way forward, in the framework of this Important ‘year of biodiversity and forests, climate’ with major international conferences: EU/China summit ; EU/Africa summit ; CBD and UNFCCC process as Important opportunity to promote the profile of the Congo Basin and the CBFP and key /Important that the Congo Basin presents with a common voice at these conferences.
The participants exchanged intensively on the following different articulations of the agenda as below:
Co Leaders Welcome Remarks
Federal Republic of Germany CBFP Facilitator Remarks - Synthesis of the CBFP Facilitation Road Map; process for collecting ideas and statements from CBFP´s members; Agenda of CBFP
Covid 19 and Conservation activities in Congo Basin
Nature conservation and Human right in Congo Basin
Next steps
Please find here below the Co-Leaders Notes from CBFP INGO College virtual Meeting with the facilitator
Thanks Andrea Athanas for taking the notes
There were 37 participants. Andrea Athanas, Achille Djeagou, Alistair Pole, Alliance GSAC, Kenneth Angu, Thomas Breuer, Catherine Long, Charles Barber, Charles Bracke, Charly Facheux*, Christian Asanga, Dany Pokem**, Duclaire Mbouna, Elie Hakizumwami, Emma Stoke*, Francois Awounkeu, Fred Kumah, Ilka Herbinger, Iven Schad, Jean-Baptiste Deffontaines, Joe Eisen, Manfred Epanda, Mangouende, Marie-Ange Kalenga, Maud Salber, Mbitikon, Nadege Nzoyem, Clotilde Ngomba, Olivia Rickenbach, Paul Elkan, Paul Kariuki Ndanganga, Roger Fotso, Roland Melisch, Christian Ruck**
Charly Facheux, co-Leader of the College: After the opening of meeting and overview of the agenda the following points were mentioned relating to the agenda:
Kenneth suggested merging the way forward and technical response with the note from the Facilitator and Emma specified that the focus of that agenda point is to agree a process rather than discuss the details of the technical response in detail.
Marie-Ange Kalenga suggested discussing the formal and information responses of the government as part of the Covid 19 discussion.
Dr. Christian Ruck, Facilitator
The Covid 19 situation has prevented planned travel to the region and to the US.
Dr. Ruck completed his PhD on the Economic effects of protected areas in developing countries, or how to make a national park a development project. He served as a member of the German Bundestag and headed the Working Group on Economic Cooperation and Development. In 2013 he took up a KfW role in the Congo Basin working on developing projects supporting protected areas.
The handover from the Belgian Facilitator at the end of 2019, and the taking over of the Facilitation on 1 January 2020. The Road Map has been developed and approved by the COMIFAC President in Office. There is continuing support for the N’Djamena process that was launched by the previous Facilitator and the support to transhumance and transboundary anti-poaching effort, as well as the China dialogue which is more important than ever. The German facilitation is dominated by the EU Africa Summit, the EU China Summit and the CBD and UNFCCC conferences. These present important opportunities for the Congo Basin, and the Facilitator envisages the CBFP as a means of providing a clear and common voice from the Congo Basin at these global platforms. Coming together with one voice also presents the opportunity to create some discipline in coming together to create a shared declaration. The primary focus over next months is to prepare a declaration from the Partnership. In Douala many members expressed an interest to strengthen communication within, between and from the Colleges. It is therefore the purpose of the technical questionnaire is to gather structured input from the Colleges for input into the Declaration and backup information that will substantiate the points made in the Declaration. The normal agenda would have been to collect responses, convene the Council at the end of May and discuss the feedback through workshops and prepare the Declaration which would then be shared at the Member meeting at the end of the year. The German Ministry would then have invited the Congo Basin Ministers to Berlin to announce the Declaration to the world. But this timeline has now shifted with Covid 19. The EU summits with China and with Africa as well as other meetings (e.g. the IUCN World Conservation Congress) are postponed. Another effort that is being proposed is a donor mapping of the support going to protected areas and conservation throughout the region. There is a need to support biodiversity on one hand and the forests of the basin on the other. On biodiversity, there is an initiative of the German government to provide long term finance to protected areas and landscapes which would be particularly well suited to supporting the region. The Glasgow meeting input is targeting an effort to support payments to the region for ecosystem services from the Congo Basin forests. The International NGO college is particularly important for this road map. Dany Pokem is responsible as coach for the College during the facilitation. The Facilitator has received 7 declarations of interest from the College. The contributions can be submitted by 1 July so as to enable the Facilitator to prepare by summer holidays.
Questions raised by the College members:
Emma Stokes asked how the Facilitator would like the inputs from the College members and whether there is an expectation of how the College will compile inputs. Response – the points of interest in the questionnaire are indicative, and other thoughts are also welcome. The most important points are insights into what is needed to conserve the forests of the Congo Basin, to secure land use, and to finance conservation as well as pre-conditions of the Congo Basin countries. It is not sufficient to call for more protected areas, integration of local communities, or support in light of Covid, but really need to have the rationale behind the big points from International NGO perspective. There are many projects with success stories as well as failures and we need to know how we can do better…what is necessary administratively, and politically to get support for protected areas, to get financial flows (e.g. through payments for ecosystem services). Its not necessary for everyone to answer every question, but the Facilitation is looking for your experiences. We also need to discuss in the college and between the colleges.
Marie Ange from Fern asked how the College will be able to consult with local CSO partners in the Basin to ensure inclusiveness of the CBFP membership. How will the Facilitation enable those who are left with no/limited connection to input into the process. Response: the Facilitator is struggling to have access to members of the CSO college given the Covid 19 situation. The initial idea was to discuss the issues in the College and then discuss across the other Colleges. CSO are an important College, and they are working in some difficulty at this point in time…and how to reach them. Raymond Mbitikon, the new CBFP Facilitator is coaching and supporting CSO inputs.
Covid 19 situation and response: Fred Kumah provide a report of meeting with African Protected Area Directors and the impacts of Covid 19 and responses: The protected areas have been significantly impacted by the pandemic, with key issues including impacts on patrols, community engagement, and wildlife surveys. There are no standards and guidelines for protected area responses, there is a desire for a protected area network to come together share lessons and develop an emergency preparedness policy and guidelines and lobby governments to invest more in nature conservation at the center of crisis response. There is also a call to look across multiple sectors for a cohesive response. AWF will share the final report with the CBFP Membership. Paul Elkan of WCS pointed out that responses are different across the continent depending on different ecosystems, and that there is community awareness going on around different protected areas. Marie Ange pointed out that logging operations have been impacted, and independent forest monitoring work been affected. The impact of any crisis on logging activities and forest management needs further investigation. The European Parliament is discussing issues of disruptions of governance and management in the forest systems and how to sustain systems in times of crisis. Roland Melisch from TRAFFIC pointed out the continuation of trade, though at a reduced level, and the continued efforts to monitor trade through TWIX across the region. Field visits and capacity building have been impacted, but the web-based instruments are still working supported by webinars for capacity building. Kenneth Angu of IUCN clarified the connection between the protected area meeting and the Africa Protected Areas Congress.
Human Rights: Marie Ange alerted the group to the statement that Fern and a group of other organizations made to the European Commission. The paper will be shared with the Membership. The College will come together to share approaches to addressing rights in the course of our work and to consolidating our response to those aspects of the technical questionnaire ( statement about the EU’s response to the COVID-19 crisis and déclaration sur la réponse mondiale de l’UE à la crise du COVID-19)
Nadege asked what the role of the agro-industries in the Facilitation Plan. This is very much part of the plan of the Facilitation going forward.
Way Forward: Iven Schad from BMZ expressed gratitude to the International NGO College for the discussion, and stressed the importance of substantive responses to the technical questionnaire to provide input into the Declaration but also to vitalize the council meetings and get a sense of where there is broader interest among the Colleges and stimulate future discussions. Regarding the level of ambitions in the Declarations, there is an aim to have honest Declarations that lead to meaningful contributions to agreements on what each stakeholder group can do to contribute to a solution.
Closing remarks: Emma Stokes, Co Leader, thanked the Facilitator for his presentation and to the Members of the College for the largest participation ever of the College and revitalizes the process towards the Declaration and way forward. Please also keep us involved through virtual interactions in the absence of being able to meet in person.
As the world races to mitigate global warming, agricultural expansion generally characterized by the practice of slash and burn has been identified as the topmost driver of deforestation that leads to carbon emission in the world’s largest carbon sink. In a new report titled Congo Basin Forests – State of the Forests 2021 produced by the Central Africa Forest Observatory (OFAC), experts say population growth puts fresh pressure on the forests of Central Africa and consequently reduce carbon stock as thousands of arrival of agrarian households into forest areas leads to clearing to establish farmlands. The experts also listed logging, territorial development, land use, governance and need for energy as other factors driving deforestation.
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH have signed an agreement with the Government of Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) for a USD 79.3 million project (USD 35.2 million in GCF financing), to address a much-needed transition to the climate resilient management of forests and landscapes at scale.
GCF and the World Bank have signed an instrumental legal agreement to rapidly begin implementing the second phase of a renewable energy facility. It will support nine countries in meeting their NDC commitments while increasing access to electricity for the most vulnerable populations. The mitigation/adaptation cross-cutting Facility aims to also increase the reliability of the grid infrastructure, improving the country’s economic resilience, and the resilience of vulnerable households to better adapt to the devastating impacts of climate change.
On 5 January 2023, during the ceremony to present New Year’s greetings to the President of the Republic of Congo, Denis Sassou N’Guesso reiterated the announcement he had made at the 27th United Nations Climate Conference (COP27) in Egypt. In his capacity as president of the Congo Basin Climate Commission, he announced that the summit of the world’s three major forest basins would be held in Brazzaville in June 2023. The Congo Basin in Central Africa, the Amazon Basin in South America and the Borneo Mekong Basin in Southeast Asia.
As part of an effort to operationalize an integrated landscape approach in southern Zambia, the COLANDS (Collaborating to operationalize landscape approaches for nature, development, and sustainability) initiative has been developing and applying new tools and techniques designed to understand and integrate stakeholder visions for the Kalomo Hills Forest Reserve landscape.
The thirty-fifth meeting of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) Board has ended with the approval of USD 587.7 million in new climate finance for developing nations, as well as the selection of a new Executive Director. Mafalda Duarte has been selected as the next Executive Director of GCF, with Henry Gonzalez, GCF Deputy Executive Director, appointed to serve as interim Executive Director until Duarte starts her tenure with GCF. The outgoing Executive Director Yannick Glemarec is reaching the end of his four-year term and will leave GCF on 2 April 2023.
“Working on gender issues requires the ability to understand questions such as ‘why’ and ‘how’,” said Stibniati Atmadja, Ethiopia’s Country Lead for the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)’s Women’s Land Rights Initiative (WLR). “Qualitative data is key for this – but collecting and analyzing such data is a major skill gap in many countries.”
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) Board has selected Mafalda Duarte as its new Executive Director. Following an extensive global recruitment process, the Board made the selection during its thirty-fifth meeting at the GCF headquarters in Songdo, Incheon, Republic of Korea.
For developing countries who are part of the UN’s REDD+ scheme (to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and foster conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks), establishing baseline forest reference emission levels (FREL) is essential obligation to track progress towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions. FREL covers emissions from deforestation and – in some countries – from forest degradation and peat decomposition. In countries like Indonesia, Peru, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and the Republic of Congo (RoC), that have large amounts of standing forest – and which can contribute significantly to a country’s emissions due to land-use change – these reference levels are particularly critical.
Ghana has become the second country in Africa after Mozambique to receive payments from a World Bank trust fund for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, commonly known as REDD+. The World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) paid Ghana $4,862,280 for reducing 972,456 tons of carbon emissions for the first monitoring period under the program (June to December 2019).
Paris, 27 February 2023 – The One Forest Summit will be held in Libreville, Gabon, on 01-02 March, with the goal of making progress on climate action and protecting biodiversity by promoting solidarity between the three major forest basins of the world. Director General Audrey Azoulay will attend to highlight UNESCO’s unique mandate to protect forest areas and numerous conservation programs.
Mungu Amurinde Jeanne d’Arc, a resident of Rubavu District in the Western Province of Rwanda has expressed special gratitude to the President of Rwanda Paul Kagame for the positive impacts brought by the Sebeya Catchment conservation project.
Baroness Scotland is head of the Commonwealth Secretariat - the organisation's main intergovernmental agency. Getty Image. The Commonwealth Secretary-General, Rt Hon Patricia Scotland KC, will be in Gabon from Wednesday 1 March to highlight the importance of protecting global biodiversity at the One Forest Summit in Libreville on Thursday.
The SOF 2021 four-part report highlights facts and figures on the Congo basin forests recognized worldwide for their essential role in carbon sequestration and the conservation of biological diversity. It also provides considerations that will guide decisions on forest management.
Following an initial call for proposals launched in March 2022, the RESSAC coordination committee is calling on scientific and academic institutions from Central African and European countries, as well as on forest and environmental resource managers from Central Africa, to form a grouping and submit research proposals for RESSAC funding. For this second call for proposals, the RESSAC programme will favour research proposals relating to the social and/or economic sciences. Proposals should be sent by 15 April 2023 at the latest.
For decades, Lake Chad has remained a mainstay for the Basin’s 45-50 million people, most of whom are fishermen, farmers, herders, and petty traders who depend on the Lake for their livelihoods and economic well-being. However, over the years, the combined effects of the Lake’s shrinking and variability due to climate change has resulted in the increasing loss of livelihood for the region.
Niamey is hosting a high-level international conference on the Lake Chad Basin since 23 January 2023. Co-organized by Germany, Norway, the United Nations System (OCHA, UNDP) and Niger (host country), this two-day meeting brings together the governments of the region (Niger, Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon) as well as international donors and partners, multilateral and international organizations.
The commitment was made during the High-Level Conference on the Lake Chad Region held in Niamey from 23 – 24 January 2023. The two-day Conference brought together over 30 countries, international organisations, and more than 100 civil society organisations in the capital of Niger. The Conference aimed to ensure that the people of this hard-hit region have humanitarian assistance and protection and foster solutions for durable solutions, including the voluntary return, reintegration, and resettlement of returnees and displaced persons (refugees band internally displaced persons) in a dignified manner.
Should the international community pay tropical forest countries for services to humanity? The countries concerned frequently request such payments to compensate for their loss of revenue as a result of being unable to convert forest areas to farmland and mining operations. The authors of the latest IDDRI Issue Brief are calling for "payments for environmental services" schemes to be included in a broader co-investment for sustainable development approach.
Agroecology sets out to make use of biodiversity and boost soil health to make farming systems more resilient. How can we apply those principles to crop protection? Can we do without ? What sort of research is still needed? An international team of around 50 researchers gives some answers in a reference article in the journal Advances in Agronomy.
The Carbon & Biodiversity Commission regularly reviews relevant news and information on carbon and biodiversity and prepares a summary. We share with you here the main points of the 6th watch. The newsletter is available on request for ATIBT members.
The threshold of 10 million hectares certified as being under sustainable management should be crossed in 2025, according to the analysis of forest certification data in the Congo Basin carried out by the ATIBT Certification Commission. This is also an opportunity to look at the incentives for certification in the different countries.
Over a decade from the adoption of seven safeguard principles for REDD+ by the United Nations 2010 Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP16), the national implementation of two safeguards that address Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPs and LCs) remains a work in progress.
Wild mammals, reptiles, birds and insects are eaten by people worldwide. But overhunting – driven mainly by the demand for wild meat in urban centres – is threatening hundreds of wildlife species with extinction. It also risks cutting off millions of families from a critical source of nutrition, especially Indigenous Peoples and local communities in tropical and subtropical regions. Widespread commercial trade further complicates the issue.
On 9 March 2023 representatives of the European Parliament’s Responsible Business Conduct (RBC) Working Group, the Greens/EFA and Fern will host an event “How Partnerships complement the EU Deforestation Regulation: A discussion on the EU Strategic Framework for Partnerships”. Speakers will include representatives from Tropical Forested countries, European Policymakers and civil society actors and the discussions will focus on the elements that would make Partnerships a success.
Caught between climate change and ever-growing global demand for wood, natural tropical forests are more vulnerable than ever. We urgently need to find new sources of timber, particularly since the current sustainability criteria are failing to guarantee stand renewal. Plinio Sist, Head of CIRAD's Forests and Societies research unit, looks at the alternatives.
After several decades in Cameroon, and despite their significant contribution to agricultural research and development in Cameroon, the CGIAR Centers and their achievements are still not well known in the country. The centers organized an open day in Yaoundé on 19 January to amplify CGIAR and its partners’ actions to transform food systems in Cameroon and beyond while enhancing environmental health and biodiversity, despite the ongoing climate crisis.
International Day of Women and Girls in Science, celebrated on 11 February, recognizes the often overlooked contributions of women scientists. Research shows that despite a shortage of skills in most technological areas, gender disparity still exists in the field. Women make up less than a third of the workforce across science, technology and engineering. Women scientists are typically given smaller research grants than their male colleagues, and their work tends to be underrepresented in high-profile journals.
Drought is one of nature's costliest disasters – across the globe, more frequent and prolonged droughts are up nearly by a third since 2000. No country or region is immune to their impacts, which cost the global economy billions of dollars each year and range from the loss of life, livelihoods and biodiversity to water and food insecurity, disruption in the energy, transportation and tourism sectors, as well as forced migration, displacement and conflicts over scarce resources.
Gracing every continent of the Earth, wetlands are essential to the planet’s health, often compared to its vital organs, acting as arteries that carry water and as kidneys that filter harmful substances. Wetlands serve as the watchful sentinels of our wellbeing: they form protective barriers against tsunamis and sponge up the excess rainfall to reduce flood surges.
Bonn, Germany, 10 February 2023 – Today, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the Korea Forest Service of the Republic of Korea signed a new Memorandum of Understanding to further support Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN).
Addressing the UN General Assembly (UNGA), UN Secretary-General António Guterres highlighted his priorities for 2023. Describing 2023 as “a year of reckoning,” he urged Member States to change the mindset of decision making from near-term thinking to long-term thinking and develop a strategic vision to act decisively “in deep and systemic ways.”
The resumed first meeting of the ad hoc Open-ended Working Group on a Science-Policy Panel for Chemicals, Waste, and Pollution (OEWG 1.2) continued its task of developing a science-policy panel, which will help scientists and policymakers inform one another on these issues. Delegates agreed on capacity building as a new function of the panel.
Permanent Representatives of Ireland and Qatar to the UN convened an informal meeting to hear delegates’ preliminary views on the scope and substance of the political declaration to be adopted by the 2023 SDG Summit in September. The co-facilitators also outlined their approach to the consultation process and timing of future meetings.
Peru has recognized the role of Indigenous Amazonian Peoples for ensuring the sustainable use of one the world’s most biodiverse biomes and realising its climate and conservation plans. However, community forest management, or CFM, has struggled to deliver on its promise of environmental and livelihood improvements. In Peru, as in many other tropical forest countries, communities are often unable to comply with forestry regulations and are pushed to the informal sector, where unjust commercial relations and unsustainable practices predominate.
