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The Congo Basin is home to the second largest rainforest in the world. Photo: AFP

DR Congo’s rethink of logging deals ahead of COP26 climate change summit could hit Chinese firms

  • The government is keen to emphasise its environmental credentials and fears illegal contracts have put US$1 billion international conservation funding at risk
  • Chinese firms are not directly targeted, but the country is the biggest export market for rosewood – a resource targeted by illegal logging operations
The Democratic Republic of Congo has ordered an audit of all logging contracts and the suspension of all dubious concessions ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow next month.

President Felix Tshisekedi told a meeting of the council of ministers last week that such actions were necessary “to make it easier for the country to benefit from the funds provided on the international market”.

The DRC is hoping to secure US$1 billion funding for its conservation plans from the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI), a coalition of donors including Norway, France, Germany and Britain.

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The Congo Basin is home to the world’s second-largest rainforest after the Amazon with 375 million hectares. Many countries, including China, source hard wood and other forest products from the DRC.

CAFI had threatened to cut funding after the Congolese government breached an agreement it struck with the initiative to conserve the forest in return for international aid money by awarding new contracts.

Although Tshisekedi did not expressly mention Chinese companies – which play a major role in other sectors such as mining – they are big players in the timber business, especially for rosewood, which is in high demand for luxury Chinese furniture.

This demand has made the Central African nation a key source for timber, which environmentalists say is illegally sourced – often from protected areas.

At least two Chinese companies are known to have been awarded logging rights in 2018, and according to an international development consultant there are also many illegal operators, some of them Chinese, logging rosewood.

President Felix Tshisekedi said the review would help the country benefit from international conservation funding. Photo: Reuters

“The first verifications revealed the illegality of many contracts, including those signed in September 2020 which awarded, to a single company, six concessions with a total area of 1,376,375 hectares in violation of the law,” a statement released after the council meeting said.

The DRC law limits the area controlled by a single firm to 500,000 hectares. The Congolese president asked the ministry of environment “to make a technical and financial inventory of all forest concessions in the DRC, to suspend all doubtful contracts pending the outcome of the audit”.

Early this year, non-governmental Organisations initiated a legal action against former environment minister Claude Nyamugabo over claims that Chinese firms were illegally granted logging permits for two million hectares in 2018.

The case is still pending before the Council of State.

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A 2019 report by WWF said while most industrial logging companies are backed by Swiss, Belgian and Lebanese capital, the main export market for most of them is China.

“The increased presence of Chinese operators in the Congolese forestry sector coincided with a process of review of existing logging concessions in 2006, leading to a process of reconversion (renewal) of those deemed compliant with the 2002 Forest Law in 2008,” said the WWF study.

According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, about two thirds of the DRC’s rough wood is exported to mainland China, with France, Taiwan, Portugal and Japan also being major markets.

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Tshisekedi recently ordered a review of a US$6 billion deal covering infrastructure and minerals signed in 2008 with Chinese companies led by Sinohydro and China Railway Engineering Corporation.

He also formed a commission to investigate the reserves at the Tenke Fungurume Mining copper and cobalt project, which is majority-owned by China Molybdenum.

Christian-Geraud Neema, an international development consultant based at the International University of Japan, said the DRC wants to demonstrate its willingness and determination to play an essential role in the fight against global warming ahead of COP26 by preserving its forest.

“As much as there is a will to play that role, at the same time in Kinshasa there is a sentiment that DRC has never been fully rewarded to the extent of its potential,” Neema said.

The country is estimated to have lost 8 per cent of its tree cover in the past few decades. Photo: AFP

He said the political or military authorities had previously collaborated with several illegal operations in the forestry sector, and “among these illegal operators, there are many Chinese who exploit the rosewood which is very popular in China”.

Neema said the poor governance that plagues the sector had also allowed the award of new concessions of operations to several companies in 2018, including Chinese ones.

However, contrary to the mining revision process, “I do not believe that this audit is targeting explicitly the Chinese. It just happens that Chinese are also present in the illegal logging in the DRC”, Neema said.

He said COP 26, where the DRC is expected to ask for hefty compensation, is a more likely explanation for the government’s actions than anti-China sentiment.

“So, by showing a willingness to ‘clean-house’, the Congolese government can legitimately ask for more from the international community,” he said.

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“We already know that its willingness to lift [a 2002 logging moratorium] has sparked some concerns among NGO and civil society, let’s see if this might help DRC position itself in the coming COP 26.”

According to Global Forest Watch, between 2001 and 2020, the country lost some 15.9 million hectares of tree cover, or 8 per cent of the total.

Colin Robertson, senior forest researcher at Global Witness, said the moratorium on handing out new logging concessions in the DRC has held back some of the worst impacts of logging.

“The bulk of DRC’s illegal or high-risk timber heads to Chinese ports. It would be good to see stronger checks on these imports in China, similar to laws in other countries on illegal timber imports.”

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: DRC logging review could hit mainland companies
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