The Republic of Congo will once again host a summit of the world's three major forest basins. Scheduled for June 2023 in the capital Brazzaville, this summit will serve as a framework for the creation of a global coalition for the protection of the environment and biodiversity.
On 5 January 2023, during the ceremony to present New Year’s greetings to the President of the Republic of Congo, Denis Sassou N’Guesso reiterated the announcement he had made at the 27th United Nations Climate Conference (COP27) in Egypt. In his capacity as president of the Congo Basin Climate Commission, he announced that the summit of the world’s three major forest basins would be held in Brazzaville in June 2023. The Congo Basin in Central Africa, the Amazon Basin in South America and the Borneo Mekong Basin in Southeast Asia.
The aim of this summit is to advance the ambition for the protection and sustainable management of tropical forests around three themes. The development of scientific cooperation on forest ecosystems, in particular to increase international expertise on the links between health and biodiversity. The second theme focuses on building sustainable value chains in the forest sector, so that their activities benefit the economy, the environment and local populations. The third theme focuses on innovative financing for biodiversity, to increase the quantity and quality of financing for tropical forest conservation.
On this third aspect, the French Head of State expressed his country’s commitment at COP27 to granting a “special status” to tropical forests. “The states that are home to these forests could benefit from political and financial contracts that would help them to preserve them,” Emmanuel Macron announced at the time.
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The large forest basins play a major role in regulating the climate by sequestering huge volumes of CO2. They are also home to exceptional flora and fauna. The Brazzaville summit on countries sharing these ecosystems is the second of its kind. It was initiated by the Congolese president, Denis Sassou N’Guesso, after the one held from 31 May to 3 June 2011 in the same city.
Boris Ngounou
