2023-Public-Sector-Perspectives

Taller and more resilient to climate change than the Amazon rainforest, the Congo Basin’s trees soak up some 1.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year and store one third more carbon over the same area of land than those of the Amazon. However, despite its resiliency, the Congo Basin has been subject to unsustainable exploitation and monetization in the past. In 1885, Belgian King Leopold II established the Congo Free State by seizing the African landmass as his possession. Rather than control the Congo as a colony, as other European powers did throughout Africa, Leopold privately owned the region. He designated large parts of the Congo Free State as concessions to private companies who in turn, extracted natural resources and co-opted the powers of local leaders. The exposure to extractive institutions during this period had devastating long-term consequences for local populations, natural resources, and the development of the country as a whole. For example, rubber concessions granted resulted in the suffering and hardships of the indigenous population for over four decades. The Congo Basin is again being threatened. This time, however, by climate change, the biggest global menace to human economies and one of the most disruptive risks in the coming decade. Nevertheless, with the knowledge and tools available today, we can avoid the catastrophes from the past and avoid what Joseph Conrad described as “the vilest scramble for loot that has ever disfigured the history of human conscious”. Through private and public sector partnerships and the mobilization of climate finance for aligning financial returns better with sustainable development outcomes, the Congo Basin can continue to be the world’s lungs for the future. Environmental, social and economic imperatives for supporting the Congo Basin Forests currently absorb one third of CO 2 emissions from burning fossil fuels annually, and they host around 80% of the planet’s terrestrial biodiversity. Despite the importance of the world’s forests, and especially the Congo Basin for its unique characteristics, deforestation in this forest is changing rapidly. In 2017, a tree-covered area of 18.000 km 2 was lost (compared to an area of 5,000 km 2 in 2011), amounting to more than 7,000 football fields of forest cleared every single day, (Figure 1). Figure 1: Annual tree cover loss in the Congo Basin, 2001 — 2017 (ha) Source: Mongabay.com using WRIs Global Forest Watch & Hansen (2018) 78 Congo Basin Maintains High Levels of Biodiversity and Natural Resources That Need to be Managed, Maintained and Monetized