News
New RFUK report reveals the growing extent, and impact, of transport and energy infrastructure development in the Congo Basin
A new study by RFUK has found that infrastructure development is causing huge destruction in world’s second largest rainforest – and international climate programmes are ignoring it. While REDD+ programmes in the Congo Basin have invariably targeted subsistence farming as the main driver of deforestation, they have almost completely overlooked the role of infrastructure development – … Read more
Press Release: Open Letter on NbS to the COP26 Presidency
NATURE-BASED ’DISTRACTIONS’: IS THE UK ABOUT TO POUR BILLIONS INTO AN OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY BACKED GREENWASH SCHEME? With just weeks to go before COP26 in Glasgow, a group of leading environmental and human rights NGOs have written to the UK Presidency of the crucial climate talks warning that one of its flagship policies, so-called ’nature-based solutions’ to climate change, risks greenwashing some of the biggest … Read more
Exciting news as RFUK’s real-time forest monitoring technology is rolled out in Côte d’Ivoire
After a training last week with Ivory Coast partners Initiatives pour le Développement communautaire et la conservation de la Forêt (IDEF), RFUK’s bespoke community based real-time monitoring application Forestlink is now active in 7 countries across central and West Africa. The app – which allows forest-dependent communities to send alerts on illegalities and human rights … Read more
44 Congolese and international NGOs join call to stop lifting of the DRC logging moratorium
The DRC government has announced imminent plans to lift a near 20-year ban on new logging concessions operations in its Congo Basin rainforest – one of the last intact rainforests in the world. With less than six weeks to go before the crucial climate negotiations at COP26, Environmental and Human Rights NGOs are calling on … Read more
Community finally receives official documents to manage their traditional lands
This Thursday, September 2, the Bamasobha community of Lubero (North- Kivu), comprised of indigenous and Bantu groups, was officially handed the decree legally recognising their hard-won CFCL (local communities’ forest concession). This decree guarantees perpetual rights over Bamasobha’s customary lands, and thus opens the way to the management stage of the CFCL, an area rich … Read more
Press Release: NGOs warn about lifting DRC logging ban
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: LOOMING CLIMATE CATASTROPHE IF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY STAYS SILENT ON PLAN TO OPEN UP THE WORLD’S SECOND-LARGEST RAINFOREST TO INDUSTRIAL LOGGING, WARN NGOS In a letter to international climate funders, a group of leading environmental and human rights organisations warn of an impending climate and biodiversity catastrophe following a plan to lift a … Read more
First international counter-conference on conservation will denounce “world’s biggest land grab”
The world’s first major international congress on decolonizing conservation, “Our Land, Our Nature”, will take place in Marseille, France, on September 2, 2021, immediately before the IUCN World Conservation Congress in the same city. At this congress indigenous representatives and speakers from around 18 countries will share evidence and first-hand testimonies of conservation atrocities and … Read more
Lifting DRC’s logging moratorium would be a disaster, warn NGOs
13 July 2021, Kinshasa – Greenpeace Africa, the Rainforest Foundation UK and the Rainforest Foundation Norway are alarmed over a plan announced by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Environment Minister Eve Bazaiba to lift a ban on new industrial logging concessions in the world’s second largest tropical forest. The national moratorium, which has stood since 2002 … Read more
Upcoming: a decolonized alternative to the World Conservation Congress
This September, as world leaders and conservation NGOs gather for the World Conservation Congress, Indigenous Peoples on the frontlines of deforestation will again be kept out of the decision-making process as these leaders push for more protected areas and “nature-based solutions” – both of which are at high risk for creating human rights violations and … Read more
Just launched: “Forests for the Future” a 5-year community forestry project in DRC
With the support of USAID and Norad, the Rainforest Foundation UK and a consortium of Congolese organisations are launching “Forests for the Future,” a 5-year project supporting community forests and sustainable livelihoods in DRC. Kinshasa, July 7, 2021 – Senior representatives of the government (from the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development), the United States … Read more