NGO’er i Den Demokratiske Republik Congo fejrer vedtagelsen af en ny mekanisme, der skal give de lokale samfund øget kontrol over skove og skovressourcer.
KINSHASA, 12 August 2014 (FERN): The 2 August 2014 decision to sign the 2010 decree (décret n°14/018) – which one campaigner commented had been “gathering dust in the prime minister’s drawer” – came after intense pressure from campaigners in the DRC supported by international NGOs and the World Bank. The government appeared reluctant to cede the management of potentially lucrative sources of revenue to communities and artisanal loggers.
The DRC is home to the world’s second largest area of untapped primary forest. In addition to the huge logging potential, some 40 million Congolese depend on forests for food, their livelihoods and medicines.
The decree is a positive development representing the fruit of many years of advocacy. That the DRC decree is not modelled on the community forestry law from nearby Cameroon is encouraging: The Cameroonian law is widely perceived to have delivered disappointing results and has not empowered communities as expected.
However, NGOs in DRC warn that the wording of the new decree is much weaker than the last version of the draft legislation they had reviewed before the government threw the process into the deep freeze by neglecting to sign.
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