31 October 2013

Agreement on joint effort to combat illegal timber trade in the Congo Bassin

On 22 October, representatives of six countries located in the Congo Bassin, with timber industry representatives and civil society adopted the “Brazzaville Declaration” in which they agreed to jointly combat illegal timber trade in the Congo Basin.

The six states that adopted the Declaration are the Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire and Gabon.

The Congo Basin, covering an area of 300 million hectares, harbours the world’s second largest rainforest after Amazonia. As a key resource for stabilizing the global climate, however, it is also a major supplier of illegal timber. The Brazzaville Declaration aims to implement measures that improve timber tracking, transparency and forest governance.

Source: UN News Centre | African countries consent to tackle illegal timber trade in Congo Basin – UN agency