Journalists & communicators in group photo with MINEPDED & WWF Officials
By Nformi Sonde Kinsai
The Climate Finance Expert at WWF Cameroon, Jonas Kemadjou Syapze and the UN Convention on Climate Change, UNCCC Focal Point in the Ministry of the Environment, Protection of Nature and Sustainable Development, MINEPDED, Timothée Kagonbe have projected the important position of the Congo Basin High Integrity Forest advocating more finances for its preservation.
Both experts were speaking in Yaounde on January 31, 2025, to members of the Association of Journalists and Scientific Communicators of Cameroon and those of the African Media Network for the Promotion of Health and the Environment, REMAPSEN. The Coffee-Science event moderated by Line Renee Batongue was organised under the theme: “Baku COP29 balance-sheet and financing initiative of the Congo Basin High Integrity Forest.”
Speaking for the WWF National Director, Kemadjou told reporters that the Congo Basin High Integrity Forest Initiative is a move by the Congo Basin Forest Commission, COMIFAC supported WWF. He said to promote the initiative, a parallel discussion was organised at COP29 for countries of the Congo Basin forest to deliver a common message geared at encouraging support for the High Integrity Forest Initiative.
The initiative, he stated, is expected to trigger equitable financial flows from partners for forest conservation, protection of biodiversity and climatic stability; strengthen regional collaboration by putting into the limelight the collective efforts of COMIFAC members as well as defining concrete actions to ensure the Congo Basin High Integrity Forest Initiative is included in the UN Conference of Parties, COP30 on climate change billed for Brazil.
In his presentation, Kemadjou said the Congo Basin forest is playing a key role in global climatic regulation and biodiversity preservation in the face of insufficient international finances for the conservation of its forest despite increasing socio-economic pressure. He said despite the low rate of deforestation of 0.01 to 0.33% in the sub-region compared to other tropical forest regions like Amazon and Borneo-Mekong basins, the Congo Basin received only a meagre 4% of international funding.
He remarked that the initiative is geared at identifying inherent economic factors in the sub-region, give it value and see how they can be remunerated by international partners that work for environmental preservation. He said this will make the Congo Basin forest not a pool of expenditure but that of revenue generation.
Kemadjou said since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, countries of the sub-region have taken measures in terms of legislation, policies, programmes and projects for sustainable forest management. He said all of these efforts need to be evaluated and compensated for. Other areas that Congo Basin states need to be compensated for are in the domain of valorisation of carbon stocks in line with article five of the Paris agreement and carbon sequestration.
“If all these factors are studied, analysed and given real value that would be paid to the states of the Congo Basin, the High Integrity Forest would become a revenue pool leading to the green economic transition of our countries,” Kemadjou stated.
In an evaluation of what transpired at COP29 in Baku, Timothée Kagonbe said the outcome was more a deception because set objectives were not attained. He said after eight years of the Paris agreement that warranted developed countries to contribute 100 billion a year into a fund for forest conservation in the Congo- Basin, it turned out to be a failure.