Environmental civil society organizations gathered within the Renovated Climate REDD Working Group (GTCRR) held a press conference in Kinshasa on Saturday 12 November. The press briefing focused on clarifying the Tradlink affair while castigating the tendency of Greenpeace Africa, to want to be noticed during the COP27, by tarnishing the image of the DRC as a « Solution Country ».
During the press briefing on November 12, the GTCRR raised a few key points, including the following:
- the environmental civil society of the DRC is aware and determined to support the government in governance in favor of the universe by respecting the interests of local communities, indigenous peoples and pygmies.
- GTCRR notes that Greenpeace Africa wants to undermine the efforts of the DRC in forest management: the legal review and the reforms in progress, the ratification of the Paris agreement and the process of granting new forest concessions.
National civil society and stakeholders state that they were not consulted before the publication of the Greenpeace Africa press release published on November 7th. GTCRR wonders, Why talk about communities without identifying the people mentioned? Why not wait for the conclusions of the legal review and not organize mixed IO and CSO missions in problem areas?
GTCRR thinks that Greenpeace Africa has chosen this moment when the attention of the world is turned towards the COP 27 and that the DRC is considered a solution country to tarnish its image.
From Egypt, where he is participating at the COP27 conference, Professor Jean-Robert Bwanngoy, Managing Director of ERA Congo, the organization at the center of the communiqué weighed in the debate.
Normally, I do not respond to neo-colonialist organizations whose only agenda is to want to attack the DRC. You can ask them to show the concession contract that we signed. It is an imaginary contract that is only in the minds of those who invented the report. We have not yet signed a contract but we will eventually sign a forest concession contract in good and due form in line with the prescriptions of the law. Everything they said was a web of lies that they made up because the time was right. They had to launch something during COP 27.
Prof. Bwankoy | MD ERA Congo
And to present the added value that ERA Congo brings to the indigenous communities,
We are proud to say that we have worked hard for Mai-Ndombe and that we have reaped benefits for the state and the province of Mai-Ndombe. Children go to school for free in the Project Area with their money. It’s not with my company money. It is with their share. That’s how we give them uniforms, school supplies, how we build school buildings. We have 18 buildings already, we will go up to 28 and then 50 in the project area.
Prof. Bwankoy | MD ERA Congo
