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Initially scheduled for June 2021, the end of the project "Implementation of a regional approach for the development of PAFC certification systems" is postponed until the end of June 2022.
On December 22, 2020, the ATIBT submitted to the PEFC Council the application for the endorsement of the PAFC Congo Basin regional forest certification scheme. This marked the end of the development process of the said regional certification scheme after 18 months of work with the various stakeholders in forest management in the Congo Basin.
Initially scheduled for June / July 2020, this submission occurred 6 months later. This delay is mainly due to the restrictions imposed from March 2020 in the frame of the management of the covid-19 pandemic which caused the postponement and the delay in time, of the implementation of certain activities of the project programmed during 2020.
In addition to this lag in the implementation of certain activities, it appeared necessary to integrate and carry out new activities with a view to a harmonious and effective operationalization of the PAFC Congo Basin (PAFC CB) certification scheme once endorsed by PEFC.
Considering the impacts of this 6-month delay in the timing of the implementation of the remaining activities as well as the duration of the process of evaluation and endorsement of the PAFC Congo Basin scheme by the PEFC Council which should end in November 2021 with the endorsement of said scheme through the general assembly of the PEFC Council, the project leader (ATIBT) and the PPECF (main donor) discussed the possibilities to prolong the project.
The two parties agreed at the end of this exchange on the need to extend the duration of the project activities to ensure a good end of the project.
Thus, initially scheduled for June 2021, the end of the project "Implementation of a regional approach for the development of PAFC certification systems" is postponed until the end of June 2022.
Regarding the recognition of the PAFC CB scheme, the conformity assessment process of the submitted scheme goes through:
After successfully passing the step of verifying the compliance of the submitted file documents, the PEFC Council organized a webinar with the PAFC CB project team. The objective of this Webinar held on February 01, 2021 was to present to PEFC the forest management standard development process conducted, the tools of the PAFC CB certification scheme and the actors concerned with the management of the future PAFC CB certification scheme management system.
The meeting between the CBFP Facilitator of the Federal Republic of Germany, Honorable Dr. Christian Ruck, and the members of the College of International NGOs of the CBFP took place this Tuesday, March 7, 2023, without taboos and with an open heart.
On Wednesday, February 8 at 15.00 CET (Berlin, Brussels, Kinshasa Time) on MS Team, the partners and co-leaders of the Eastern Block of the follow-up of the implementation of the N'Djaména Declaration on Transhumance held their first coordination meeting of the year 2023. This meeting followed the meeting of the Central block on Tuesday, January 31, 2023.
On Wednesday, March 8, at 3:00 p.m. (Yaoundé time) on MS Team, in anticipation of the end of the German CBFP Facilitation scheduled for July 2023, and with a view to preparing the handover from the German Facilitation to the France-Gabon Co-Facilitation, the Facilitator of the Federal Republic of Germany, Honorable Dr. Christian Ruck, held a meeting with the members of the Intergovernmental College and Multilateral Institutions of the CBFP.
Bujumbura, March 14, 2023, The CBFP Facilitator from the Federal Republic of Germany, Honorable Dr. Christian Ruck, took the floor at the 11th Ordinary Session of the Council of Ministers of the Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC), held from March 14 to 17, 2023 in Bujumbura, Burundi. The council was organized by COMIFAC in close collaboration with the Burundian Ministry of Environment, Agriculture and Livestock, and with the financial support of the German cooperation through the GIZ project.
Bujumbura, Burundi, March 17, 2023 - The opening of the ministerial segment of the eleventh COMIFAC Council of Ministers was marked by the handover ceremony of the Chairmanship between the Republic of Cameroon, outgoing Chair, and the Republic of Burundi, incoming Chair, represented by Pr Sanctus NIRAGIRA, Minister of the Environment, Agriculture and Livestock of the Republic of Burundi in the presence of the Prime Minister, Head of Government Lieutenant General Gervais NDIRAKOBUCA, Heads of Institutions, Ambassadors of COMIFAC member countries, technical and financial partners, regional and international organizations, and the business community.
On Wednesday, 1st of March 2023 from 12:00 to 13:30, the strategy meeting of the international coalition "Biodiversity Corridors in Africa" took place during the One Forest Summit. Please download below the minutes in English and French.
Bujumbura, Republic of Burundi, March 14, 2023 - The experts' segment of the 11th session of the Council of Ministers of the Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC) was opened by Prof. Sanctus NIRAGIRA, Minister of Environment, Agriculture and Livestock of the Republic of Burundi.
The Wildlife Conservation Society Central African Republic Program is deeply saddened by the death of Mr. Éric Rama Doungous, Ecoguard team leader and head of the Base Vie location in Bamingui. He died Monday, March 20, after he and his team, on patrol in the western sector of Bamingui-Bangoran National Park, were ambushed by armed bandits.
Bujumbura, Republic of Burundi, March 13-14, 2023 - The sub-regional workshop on the results of the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) ended today.
Organized by KfW on the occasion of the mission in Yaounde of the CBFP Facilitator of the Federal Republic of Germany, Honorable Dr. Christian Ruck, this meeting was in line with the meetings of the Consultation Circle of MINFOF and MINEPDED Partners (CCPM), whose activities were re-launched after a slowdown due mainly to the COVID crisis. It took place on Tuesday, January 25, 2022 at Hotel La Falaise in Yaoundé, still within the framework of the visit of the CBFP facilitator to Cameroon.
"Since March 1, 2023, the United Kingdom has taken over the chairmanship of the Central African Forest Initiative, CAFI, following Germany. The UK's new role in CAFI follows on from the work done at the COP26 summit in Glasgow, Scotland, which highlighted the importance of the Congo Basin.
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.
Bujumbura, Republic of Burundi, March 17, 2023, under the high patronage of His Excellency Major Evariste NDAYISHIMIYE, President of the Republic, Head of State of Burundi, the eleventh ordinary session of the Council of Ministers of the Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC) was held on March 17, 2023 in Bujumbura, Republic of Burundi.
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 General Secretariat for Land Management has launched the study on the national forestry capital for the preparation of the national scheme of land management of the Democratic Republic of Congo. This study, which is expected to take1 year, aims at determining the ecological (conservation), economic and social potentials of the forest massifs for the whole national territory. The launching ceremony took place this Tuesday, March 14, in Kinshasa.
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 third international conference of parliamentarians on the sustainable management of Central African forest ecosystems was held in Libreville, Gabon, from 27 to 28 February 2023.
On tuesday, March 7, 2023 at 11:00 am CET (Berlin, Brussels, Kinshasa Time) the partners, leaders and co-leaders of the Western Block held their last coordination meeting online, on the follow-up of the implementation of the Declaration on Transhumance across borders, on MS Teams.
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.
The "One Forest Youth Forum (OFYF)" was held from 27 to 28 February 2023 in Libreville (Gabon) as a prelude to the One Forest Summit. The event was organized spontaneously by the youth, members of AGRIDIS and the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA Gabon) in collaboration with the National Youth Councils of ECCAS, the Youth Network for Central African Forests (REJEFAC), and a hundred NGOs and youth associations involved in the tackling of environmental, climate and forestry issues.
Jean Christophe Bokika Ngawolo, Chairperson of the Executive Committee of the NGO Mbou-Mon-Tour, was among the few personalities to speak at the One Forest Summit in the presence of various heads of state including Emmanuel Macron, Denis Sassou Nguesso and Ali Bongo. His organization was created in 1997 by a few university executives from the village of Nkala, in the territory of Bolobo (Maï-Ndombe). This territory has one of the highest densities of bonobos, an endemic species of the country and endangered according to the IUCN Red List.
The Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC) in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment, Agriculture and Livestock of Burundi and with the financial support of the German cooperation through the GIZ project to support COMIFAC are organizing the eleventh ordinary session of its Council of Ministers from 14 to 17 March 2023 in Bujumbura, Republic of Burundi.
In order to improve the efficiency of the management of Protected Areas, the DRC, with the involvement of its partners, had invested in the BIOPAMA project in order to contribute to the development of the IMET tool "Integrated Management Effectiveness Tool". The use of the IMET tool in 18 DRC Protected Areas, for an overall frequency of 33 assessments, contributed to the diagnosis of management problems and to generate structured information to guide decision making for the change of the conservation status.
In line with the CBFP "Fair Deal", the OFS advocates for "A fair deal" between forest countries and the international community: "Time for payment for services rendered to the rest of the world (with the support of the secretariat of the High Ambition for Nature and Peoples (HAC) has come. In return for the commitment of forest countries, the international community will make available more funding, but also a mechanism for payment for the services rendered by nature kept intact, including carbon sequestration.”
Tuesday, January 31, 2023 at 11:30 am (Bangui time) the first coordination meeting of the year 2023 of the partners Co-leaders of the Bloc Centre for the follow-up of the implementation of the Declaration of N'Djaména on Transhumance, took place on MS Team.
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).
Douala, Republic of Cameroon, February 23, 2023- The Executive Secretary of COMIFAC, Mr. Hervé Martial MAIDOU, today presided over the opening ceremony of the fourteenth workshop of the Sub-Group on Protected Areas and Wildlife (SGTAPFS).
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.