Funders of the historic $1.7 billion pledge announced at the 2021 U.N. climate conference say they have disbursed about 48% of the money meant to bolster the land rights of Indigenous and local communities, according to the group’s second annual report released Dec. 1. The figure puts them on track to fulfill their five-year commitment, […]
How much does it cost to protect the Congo Rainforest? Where does the money come from? Who pays and how is that money used? What models of forest protection work? These are all questions examined on the latest episode in the Mongabay Explores podcast series on the Congo Basin. To get a better understanding of […]
Carbon removal plans relying on land do not add up, says a new report. Or, more accurately, researchers have now actually added them up, but countries’ climate pledges would require millions of square kilometers of land – putting pressure on ecosystems, Indigenous peoples, and food security. Climate pledges made by countries around the world would […]
BASOKO, Congo In Yaliwasa, northern DRC, logs from 200-year-old hardwood trees lie rotting deep into the world’s second largest rainforest. They were cut in a hurry to be exported to global processing hubs in Asia, then redistributed to luxury markets in China and beyond. Instead, the precious wood is sprouting orange fungi and crumbles […]
KISANGANI, Congo A major European logging firm may have illegally converted more than a dozen of its timber concessions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo into so-called conservation concessions, a new investigation can reveal. After harvesting the most valuable timber from the 15 concessions covering an area the size of Belgium […]