English
Norwegian government priming a ‘carbon bomb’ in Congo’s rainforests?
Photo: Norway’s Climate and Environment Minister Vidar Helgesen, left, met with his counterpart in DRC in August 2016. A few weeks after the meeting, minister Robert Bopolo Mbongeza secretly issued two illegal logging concessions covering 4,000 square kilometres. These have still not been cancelled. The Rainforest Foundation UK (RFUK) has today written to Norwegian Prime … Read more
Government of Norway gives green light to continuing massive illegalities in Congo’s rainforests
The government of Norway is today accused by RFUK of encouraging impunity for serious wrong-doing, by failing to insist that illegal logging concessions in the Democratic Republic of Congo are immediately terminated. Responding to recent requests from Rainforest Foundation UK that it should refuse funding to a huge expansion of logging in the DRC, and … Read more
Logging in Congo’s Rainforests: A ‘Carbon Bomb’ About to be Primed by the Government of Norway?
In 2017, the government of Norway, through its ‘Central African Forests Initiative’ (CAFI), was considering providing financial support to a programme being developed by the French Development Agency (AFD) to greatly expand large-scale commercial logging in the rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This briefing outlines the potential impacts this proposal would have … Read more
RFUK-led coalition launches Community Forests project
This week in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), an international coalition of NGOs led by the Rainforest Foundation UK (RFUK) officially launched an innovative new Community Forests project. The project is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DfID) and aims to alleviate poverty, improve rural livelihoods, and reduce deforestation in the Congo Basin. Focusing on … Read more
Young fundraiser walks 1000 miles for the rainforest
RFUK’s star fundraiser, Abigail Wheeler, is set to reach the 300-mile mark of her 1,000-mile charity walk for the rainforest this weekend! The seven-year-old decided to get active about deforestation at the start of 2017 and pledged to walk 1,000 miles, hoping to raise £1 for each mile, for RFUK! Supported by her parents, younger … Read more
Who protects the rainforest?
To mark World Biodiversity Day, we have released the second video in our Rainforest Parks & People vlog series. In this video, we asked local communities in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) a simple question: “What does the forest mean to you?” The answer we kept hearing was very clear, and it was best summed up by … Read more
New Norway-backed logging plan for DRC’s rainforest would spell environmental catastrophe
The future of the world’s second largest contiguous rainforest hangs in the balance as the Congolese authorities and international donors consider a proposal to triple the area given out to commercial loggers. The rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo, (DRC), have been relatively safe since 2002 when an official ban on the issuing of … Read more
Asháninka cocoa growers sign landmark agreement
With support from the Rainforest Foundation UK (RFUK), Kemito Ene, the cooperative representing hundreds of Asháninka cocoa producers in Peru, has just signed an agreement to export 90 tonnes of certified organic cocoa for the international market. The agreement has been made possible in part thanks to a growing relationship with organic chocolate maker Loving … Read more
Community forests: from theory to practice
What does a community-managed forest look like in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)? That is precisely the question that the Rainforest Foundation UK (RFUK) and our partners are currently working to answer through our Community Forests (CF) project, funded by the UK Department for International Development (DfID). In February 2016, the DRC government passed landmark community … Read more
RFUK launches new interactive website on the human impacts of protected areas
The Rainforest Foundation UK (RFUK) has just launched Rainforest Parks and People – an interactive website aimed at increasing the transparency and accountability of conservation projects across Africa’s Congo Basin rainforests, and showing how such projects have impacted on local people. Drawing on publicly available information as well as RFUK’s own field research, Rainforest Parks and People features 34 … Read more