French
WWF’s lack of contrition as Independent Review finds systemic failings in its treatment of human rights
Yesterday, WWF published an independent review into human rights violations including killings, torture, sexual and physical violence and intimidation against indigenous peoples and local communities that have occurred in its operations in several areas of the world. This long overdue 160-page report lays bare institutional failings and problems with its organisational culture that allowed these … Read more
Taking on the Coronavirus in the Forests of Southern Cameroon
APIFED’s team equipped with soap, buckets with taps, disinfectant gel, masks, and posters in the local languages Baka and Bulu to distribute to communities 2020 forced humanity to recognise our global kinship as people all over the world faced the same threat at the same time. Every society witnessed how the most vulnerable communities were … Read more
EU plan to tackle biodiversity loss in Africa not good news for people or nature, NGOs say
The Rainforest Foundation UK, Minority Rights Group International and Forest Peoples Programme have today written to the European Commission expressing concerns over its plans for a new flagship biodiversity programme in Africa. The NGOs warn it could entrench an outmoded and unsustainable conservation model that has led to serious human rights abuses and dispossession of … Read more
New-look MappingForRights – Promoting transparency and accountability in forest governance
We’re delighted to announce the upgraded version of MappingForRights – the geo-spatial platform that aims to put forest communities in the Congo Basin on the map. Important decisions about forests are too often made with little understanding of the people that live in and depend on them, leading to land conflict and other negative impacts in many … Read more
UN 2030 conservation plan could dispossess 300 million people
A new UN drive to increase global protected areas could lead to severe human rights violations and cause irreversible social harm if not backed by much stronger guarantees of the rights of indigenous people and other local communities, the Rainforest Foundation UK (RFUK) warns today. In October, the Conference of Parties to the Convention on … Read more
Civic Response’s Radio Campaign Raises Awareness of ForestLink and Community-led Forest Protection in Ghana
Guest blog by Jemima Opare-Henaku, Communication, Civic Response RFUK’s Ghanaian partner Civic Response has just completed a two-month radio sensitization campaign across the country on community based Real Time Monitoring (RTM) and raising forest fringe communities’ awareness about the role they can play in forest management and monitoring. Although some progress has been made on … Read more
Forestlink: Unlocking the potential of forest guardians and environmental defenders in tackling illegal logging in DRC
With support from the UK Department for International Development (DfID), the Rainforest Foundation UK (RFUK) has been successfully developing and testing a ground-breaking new end-to-end system that is unlocking the potential of traditional forest guardians in monitoring and protecting their forests. ForestLink enables communities anywhere in the world to capture and transmit highly accurate reports … Read more
Report charts way to better inclusion of forest communities in Congo Basin land use planning processes
The rainforests of the Congo Basin are among the earth’s great carbon and biodiversity reserves. They are also believed to have been inhabited by humans for 50,000 years and today directly sustain the lives of an estimated 50 million people who are among the poorest people on the planet. As these forests come under increasing … Read more
Mapping the Future: Towards Meaningful Participation of Forest Peoples in Land-use Planning in DRC and Cameroon
This RFUK report charts way to better inclusion of forest communities in Congo Basin land use planning processes.
Securing Customary Rights is Key to Sustainable Community Forestry
The laws in the Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic provide limited protection to indigenous peoples and local communities regarding access to land and forest resources. Often, logging concessions overlap their territories, restricting access to lands and resources. However, the development of community forests is gaining momentum in the region. These can help … Read more