Report finds the country is a long way from protecting its forests

May 7, 2014 13:09 GMT  ·  By

London-based non-profit and non-governmental organization Chatham House has recently released a new report saying that, for the time being, the majority of the logging activities carried out in the Republic of the Congo are illegal.

Specifically, the organization maintains that, according to evidence at hand, operations that are not in accordance with the law presently account for a whopping 70-74% of the Republic of the Congo's overall logging industry. Mongabay informs that Congo is one of the few countries in the world that can take pride in having a fairly impressive forest cover. Thus, it is estimated that forests in this part of the world cover a surface amounting to 21.3 million hectares.

To help put things into perspective, the same source explains that, when compared to the nation's overall land mass, forests in the Republic of the Congo account for an impressive 65%. However, it might be only a matter of time before local landscapes drastically change.

Specialists working with the Chatham House explain that, between the years 2000 and 2013 alone, the country lost some 300,000 hectares of forest cover. What's more, 90% of its lowland forests are now open to logging, which means that things might soon take a turn for the worse.

In its report, the London-based non-profit and non-governmental organization details that, presently, there are two types of illegal logging activities that environmentalists and ordinary folks alike should be worried about, i.e. small scale and large scale ones.

“There are two main types of illegal logging taking place in the country: informal, small-scale artisanal logging for domestic markets (estimated to represent 20% of all harvesting); and logging in breach of various regulations by large, licensed logging concessionaires,” the group writes.

“Currently, all logging exports from Congo should be considered high-risk of being illegal, with the exception of those that have been independently verified as legal or certified sustainable,” the Chatham House report further reads.

In light of these findings, the group urges that high officials in the Republic of the Congo step up efforts to protect the country's forests by making sure that logging companies are properly monitored and consequently unable to destroy forests as they see fit.

As the Chatham House puts it, “It is essential that the government of the Congo steps up its efforts to collect forestry taxes. The higher revenues from improved tax collection should be used to increase human and technical resources for monitoring and enforcing forest laws.”

“Furthermore, penalties for forestry offenses must be increased and fully applied so that they are genuinely dissuasive,” the London-based group goes on to argue.