In a positive development, Gabon’s Forest Minister has ordered an immediate end to the logging of Massaha’s ancestral forest, by the company Transport Bois Négoce International (TBNI), paving the way for the community to create its own protected area.

Following a two-year struggle by the community, as well as international pressure from RFUK and others, Minister Lee White finally agreed to visit the community and offered his support for its efforts to establish a reserve. If this commitment is honoured, it would mark the first time in the country that such an area is declared at the request of the resident community

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