Leaders from Africa’s Congo Basin gather in Brazzaville with international officials on Saturday for a conference on the threats facing the region’s vast forest expanses, one of the world’s two lungs. The seven-nation meeting aims to breathe life into a conservation treaty signed in 1999, but which has so far made little progress.
Central African countries and international donors failed at the weekend to agree how to finance an ambitious plan to manage the region’s natural parks and forests, especially the Congo Basin forest, considered the world’s second-most important green lung after the Amazon.
In the eco-rich forests and savannas of western Congo poachers slaughter endangered wildlife with continued impunity from local authorities. ”The situation in the Conkouati park is unlawful,” said Paul Elkan of the Wildlife Conservation Society in Congo.
Sporadic clashes continued on Saturday in the Republic of Congo capital, Brazzaville, between a diehard militia group and government forces, a day after fighting left 60 militiamen dead.
