Nearly 200 million hectares of forest, spread over six countries, and a unique biodiversity in the world.
It is at the heart of this "green lung", in Libreville, that Emmanuel Macron will chair from Wednesday March 1, for two days, the One Forest Summit.
Heads of State, NGOs, and scientists will meet in the capital of Gabon to discuss the best way to protect this immense tropical forest, but also those of Amazonia and Southeast Asia.
"The choice to hold this summit in the Congo Basin is significant because the tropical forest of Central Africa is today one of the main carbon sinks on the planet", recalls Alain Karsenty, forest economist, researcher at the Center for international cooperation in agricultural research for development (CIRAD) and specialist in Central Africa.
"Due to massive deforestation, the forests of Southeast Asia now release more CO2 than they absorb. In the Amazon, studies show that we are approaching a tipping point. The only place where the forests absorb even more CO2 than they emit, it is in Central Africa."
This forest area alone, which extends over Gabon, Congo Brazzaville,
>> To read also: The forest of Central Africa, "second green lung of the planet", in danger
Unlike the Amazon, where trees have been razed by the thousands to make way for huge soybean fields and pastures, or Indonesia, a palm oil and logging paradise, the Central African forest has long been spared.
“Deforestation started in the 2010s, driven by increasing demographic pressure,” explains the specialist.
"It is above all linked to slash-and-burn agriculture, on which many farmers depend, and the use of charcoal".
A "poverty deforestation", as it is sometimes called, with strong disparities between countries: today, the Democratic Republic of Congo, with a population of 100 million, has become the country with the highest rate of deforestation highest in the world after Brazil.
Conversely, Gabon, with its 2.2 million inhabitants, can boast of almost zero deforestation.
Gabon, the regional model student
Since COP21 and the Paris Agreements, which aim to contain global warming below the fateful 1.5°C mark, all the countries of Central Africa have nevertheless made commitments to protect their forests.
"And it is Gabon that has gradually emerged as the model student in the region", continues Alain Karsenty.
For decades, this "Eden of Africa", 85% of whose territory is made up of forests, relied on the oil present in its subsoil to drive its economy.
In 2010, supported by Britain's Lee White, Minister of the Environment, he however began a transition towards new activities, the exploitation of his wood and the planting of oil palms.
The stated objective: to find a balance between the needs of its economy and those of the planet faced with the climate emergency.
To achieve this, he offered foreign furniture companies and plywood manufacturers tax benefits on the condition that they set up their factories on the territory while prohibiting the export of logs, raw wood.
At the same time, drastic logging rules have been put in place.
From now on, producers cannot cut more than two trees per hectare, and only every 25 years.
There is also a program to track all logs using barcodes to combat illegal logging.
"What create jobs, make the economy flourish while limiting logging," summarizes Alain Karsenty.
At the same time, the country has opened no less than 13 national parks, covering 11% of its territory, and installed a deforestation monitoring center using satellites.
Twelve years later, the recipe seems to have worked environmentally.
The forest area is growing and illegal logging has decreased slightly.
Another sign: the number of forest elephants, a species threatened by climate change, has increased sharply, from 60,000 in 1990 to 95,000 in 2021.
Economic success too: the country has become one of the largest plywood producers in Africa, and one of the largest in the world.
In total, the timber industry today provides some 30,000 jobs – 7% of the country's workforce, according to Gabonese authorities, quoted by the New York Times.
Regional competition
"Thanks to this policy, Gabon has now become a regional leader in environmental matters," says Alain Karsenty.
"Several countries in the Congo Basin have also announced that they want to draw inspiration from this plan. The DR Congo, Congo Brazzaville, for example, also want to ban the export of logs and create free zones to attract investors."
“And internationally, the country has offered itself the image of a model student in the region,” he continues.
"It is certainly no coincidence that it is in this country specifically that Emmanuel Macron decided to organize this One Forest Summit".
To the chagrin of its neighbour, the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is also trying to appear on the international scene as a major country in the fight against climate change.
During COP26, in Glasgow, the country proclaimed itself a "solution country" to the climate crisis and pledged to protect its forests in exchange for international financial support of 500 million dollars.
A few months later, the country hosted the “pre-COP” – ahead, this time, of COP27.
A concrete opportunity to show the country's efforts in its fight against deforestation.
The scientists had thus been welcomed to the Yangambi biosphere reserve, on the banks of the Congo river, which since the end of 2020 has hosted a "flow tower", which makes it possible to quantify the carbon absorbed or emitted by the forest.
A first in the region.
“The DR Congo has also put in place, since the 2010s, several measures to try to preserve the forest, in particular with policies of sedentarization of peasants”, explains Alain Karsenty.
But in this country marked by political unrest and corruption scandals, these measures have so far had only a limited impact.
Behind this rivalry, funding from Northern countries
"It thus has a real regional rivalry to appear on the international scene as the leader in the protection of the forest", laments Alain Karsenty.
"And the main reason for this race for leadership is the search for funding from the countries of the North."
Because the two countries agree on a central point: the industrialized countries, which bear the historical responsibility for climate change, must largely help and support the countries of the basin to carry out their ecological transition.
"Thanks to its climate diplomacy, Gabon, for its part, wants to make the countries of the North pay for its efforts in the fight against deforestation", continues the specialist.
In 2019, Norway, which has acted for several years as "patron" of tropical forests, thus agreed to pay 150 million dollars (26 million euros) to Gabon over ten years to reward its policy.
Until then, the country had only helped countries in the Amazon basin and Indonesia.
Eighteen months later, the country received a first envelope of 17 million dollars (14.3 million euros), sum paid in return for the tons of carbon sequestered thanks to the measures implemented to fight against deforestation.
DR Congo, for its part, drew sharp criticism when in July 2022, President Félix Tshisekedi announced that he wanted to launch a call for tenders for the rights to exploit oil fields, some of which are located in the heart of the country. the tropical forest, within "the largest region of tropical peatland in the world".
Enough to produce a million barrels of oil per day and generate an oil rent of more than 30 billion dollars per year, explains the New York Times, but which could jeopardize the precious carbon sink and release a large amount of CO2 in the air.
A way of threatening the countries of the North, then decried environmental NGOs, while the 500 billion dollars promised at COP26 are slow to arrive.
>> To read also: The DR Congo opens its tropical forest to oil revenue
"On the international scene, the DR Congo has been pleading for several years in particular for the services rendered by the forest to be remunerated automatically, with a logic of 'income'", continues, explains Alain Karsenty.
"The argument is to say that by preserving the forest, the country is depriving itself of income, in particular from its basements, and that this must be compensated."
So many debates that will be on the negotiating table of the One Forest Summit.
"However, it would be necessary to succeed in going beyond these questions and beyond rivalries to set up a common agenda for the countries of the basin, to achieve real regional cooperation and preserve this tropical forest."
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