The government of Norway, through its ‘Central African Forests Initiative’ (CAFI), is considering providing financial support to a programme being developed by the French Development Agency (AFD) to greatly expand large-scale commercial logging in the rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Analysis carried out by the Rainforest Foundation UK (RFUK) indicates that, as well as releasing ~0.6 billion tonnes (Gt) of carbon dioxide from the direct impact of logging activities, the likely new logging areas would substantially overlap areas of high carbon peatlands, placing an additional 2.8 Gt of carbon – or roughly 10.4 Gt of carbon dioxide – at increased risk of release to the atmosphere if these critical ecosystems are degraded and destroyed. This is equivalent to nearly 200 years of Norway’s current national annual greenhouse gas emissions.