In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), environmental civil society organizations denounce the fraudulent export of sawn timber from the Mambasa, Irumu and Aru forests to Uganda. The recently revamped Climate Working Group on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), which brings together environmental civil society organizations, has issued a warning about Uganda’s exploitation of the international timber trade, to the detriment of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which is the real producer of these resources.
Environmental activists point out that Uganda exports illegally extracted timber from Congolese forests, thus benefiting from carbon credits as an official exporter. At the same time, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the real producer of these timbers, receives no benefit from these illegal exports.
According to Mr. Dieudonné Losa, coordinator of the GTCRR, quoted by Radio Okapi, Uganda is the one that earns the carbon credit because it produces the timber on the international market. “And at that time, he is the one who leaves with the wood, and we, the real producers, do not benefit from anything. It is like gold or minerals that leave the DRC, officially declared today as blood minerals, unfit. While the neighboring country that plunders it from us is considered the real producer. The timber yard can help us to properly trace the wood,” denounced Mr. Dieudonné Losa.
One of the problems that complicates the traceability of sawn timber in the province of Ituri is the lack of a timber yard. For Dieudonné Losa, this absence also limits the country’s ability to benefit from its natural resources.
“The timber yard can help us to properly trace the wood,” he said while insisting on the need to build a timber yard in this province to put an end to the fraudulent export of sawn timber.
However, adds the same source, the Director General of the National Forest Fund (FFN) announced the upcoming implementation of a pilot reforestation project and the construction of a timber park in Ituri. This project should aim to improve the sustainable management of forest resources and strengthen the traceability of exported wood.
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