Donors Pledge US$216 Mln to Protect African Forests
Date: 19-Jun-08
Country: TUNISIA
"Each week, an area the size of 25,000 football pitches is cut down in the Congo Basin rainforest," the bank said in a statement announcing the creation of Congo Basin Forest Fund.
"According to the UN, if action is not taken now, more than 66 percent of the rainforest will be lost by 2040. This fund provides the best opportunity to the world to protect the second largest rainforest in the world after the Amazon."
The continental lender said the 10-year fund was launched in partnership with Britain, Norway and the 10 member states of the Central African Forests Commission.
The Commission groups Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Sao Tome and Principe and Rwanda, the Tunis-based bank said in a statement.
"The fund ... has already garnered pledges of US$216 million," it said.
"Our shared intention is to slow deforestation of the Congo Basin, but at the same time provide the people and the institutions the capacity to manage and find a livelihood," the statement quoted AfDB President Donald Kaberuka as saying.
A 2006 study by non-governmental organisations showed that half of the Congo Basin forests would disappear by 2030 due to intensive exploitation and population growth.
Environmental experts say protecting tropical forests is the most direct and fastest way to mitigate some of the impact of climate change.
(Reporting by Sonia Ounissi; Editing by Caroline Drees)