Misanet / The Namibian, 4 July - Africa will create a fund to promote its unique environment and seek new ways of funding green reforms such as carbon credits and cancelling debts in return for conservation, ministers say.

Africa has large areas of ecologically valuable rain forests and other habitat with many unique plant and animal species, but despite a small industrial base its environment faces many pressures including logging, climate change and poaching.

"We have decided to create an African Environmental Fund to promote sustainable development.

This fund will be housed with the African Development Bank," Republic of Congo's Environment Minister Henri Djombo said at the close of the recent biannual meeting of environment ministers from across Africa.

He appealed for help from the African Development Bank (AfDB) and other international financial institutions to assist with setting up the fund, which would channel resources into conservation efforts on the poorest continent.

"However, other means will have to be explored, namely innovative finance mechanisms used by countries in other continents like Latin America, such as carbon credits and exchanging debt for environmental services," he said.

Carbon credits allow companies who reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to earn reduction credits which they can then sell to firms in developed countries.

The scheme grew out of the United Nations Kyoto Protocol under which most developed countries have committed themselves to targets to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for climate change.

Kyoto signatories are meant to cut emissions by an average of 5,2 per cent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 as a small step to combat rising temperatures that many scientists say could cause more floods, desertification and violent storms and raise sea levels by almost a metre by 2100.

Environment ministers pledged in a closing statement at the Brazzaville meeting to reinforce their efforts under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.

Africa's biodiversity will be in the spotlight at a global conference in Madagascar next month which will examine ways to harness its ecological treasures for economic development.


By Christian Ntsoumou

© afrol News / The Namibian

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