Global Warming and Carbon Sequestration in Africa’s Forests: Potential Rewards for New Policy Directions in the Congo Basin

The Congo forest is not only an important biodiversity hotspot, providing direct ecosystem goods and services for the livelihood of more than 50 million people, it is also of global importance holding almost 10% of the world’s forest-based carbon thus acting as the planet’s second lung after the Amazon and providing a carbon-sink potential to mitigate global warming. This potential strategically positions the countries in the region in the climate change negotiations aimed to enhance forests’ capacity for sequestering carbon. These countries in turn rely heavily on forest ecosystem goods and services to catalyse economic development. The dilemma for policy is to manage the trade-off between exploitation and conservation of forests under new initiatives such as the REDD+ (reduce emissions from deforestation, forest degradation and foster conservation). Given also that countries within the basin stand to benefit from the emerging global carbon market, if correct measures are taken in managing existing natural resources, and being active participants in the international climate change negotiations, natural resource managers and forest policy makers would have to take measures to promote the sequestration of carbon in forest biomass while accounting for forest exploitation. Based on this premise, this paper reviews the interplay of global warming and carbon sequestration potential in the Congo Basin forest and provides illumination for new policy directions to enhance the capacity for adaptation and mitigation.