Covering an area estimated at 1.62 million km2, the forests of Central Africa are home to vital biodiversity for the planet and play a central role in climate regulation and carbon sequestration.
The presence of eleven natural World Heritage sites in this region testifies to the exceptional importance of these forests for global biodiversity and ecosystem conservation. A living space for more than 30 million inhabitants, the region faces various threats such as poaching, deforestation by agro-industry (oil palm and rubber), illegal exploitation of natural resources (timber, minerals, wildlife, etc.) and infrastructure projects (dams, roads).
The conservation, sustainable exploitation and management of forest sites in Central Africa, and in particular in Cameroon, Congo, Gabon and the Central African Republic, have since 2004 benefited from the activities of the Central Africa World Heritage Forest Initiative (CAWHFI), which aims to strengthen the management of protected areas while
EXPEDITIONS
Expeditions primarily began in the 1880s, shortly after the region was taken over by Belgium. For many years, therefore, it was called the Belgium Congo. Beginning from 1909, here is a brief list of over a dozen of them.
AMERICAN EXPEDITION 1909
Naturalist Carl Hagenbeck recounted in his autobiography how two separate individuals - a German named Hans Schomburgh and an English hunter - told him about a huge monster, half elephant, half dragon, which lived in the Congo swamps. Later, another naturalist, Joseph Menges, related to Hagenbeck that some kind of dinosaur, seemingly akin to the brontosaurs, inhabited the swamps. Hagenbeck soon sent an expedition to the Congo to search for the monster, but the effort was quickly aborted due to disease and hostile natives.
United Nations re-affirms support for Africa s conservation efforts By Otiato Opali in Nairobi, Kenya | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2021-01-14 20:49 A view of the Dja Faunal Reserve in Cameroon. [Photo/Xinhua]
The United Nations has reiterated it will continue to partner with Kenya and other African countries in their efforts to conserve natural resources and ease pressures on the planet.
This was revealed by Walid Badawi, the resident representative at UNDP Kenya, on Wednesday at the unveiling of the UN s annual Human Development Report 2020 titled The next frontier: Human Development and the Anthropocene . The report analyses how humans impact the planet and how that interacts with existing inequalities.
World Heritage and Biodiversity
We are pleased to bring you this issue on biodiversity and World Heritage sites, focusing on some of the properties most vital to the future of our planet.
These articles were prepared in anticipation of the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) originally planned for October 2020 in Kunming, China, and the designation of a “biodiversity super year”. Many far-reaching decisions concerning the preservation of biodiversity were meant to be taken in 2020. But due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of international meetings including COP 15 could not take place and have been postponed.
Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic is not an isolated phenomenon. Scientific evidence links the emergence of the COVID-19 virus to the breakdown of ecosystems and biodiversity loss. Humankind has been destroying the natural environment at an accelerating rate, putting human populations in contact with new pathogens we are not equipped to control.