Civil society organizations from across Central Africa will assemble in Libreville, Gabon, from October 28 to 29, 2026, for the third Regional Conference of Environmental Civil Society Organisations, aiming to establish a unified strategy to combat deforestation and safeguard the Congo Basin rainforest.
Organised jointly by Greenpeace Africa and Brainforest, the two-day summit will convene over 50 delegates from Cameroon, the Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Convening under the theme “A Resilient Congo Basin: Forests, People, Finance and Nature,” the conference seeks to translate global ecological commitments into accountable regional policy, forest governance frameworks, and equitable climate finance distribution.
As the world’s second-largest tropical rainforest supporting over 80 million residents, the Congo Basin faces mounting environmental degradation, with World Resources Institute data indicating a loss of approximately 780,000 hectares of primary forest in 2024 alone. Delegates will address structural threats stemming from extractive industries while advocating for secure land tenure rights and direct financial mechanisms for Indigenous peoples and local conservation communities. Building on previous summits in Yaoundé and Kinshasa, the Libreville assembly aims to ratify a joint declaration and regional advocacy roadmap ahead of the COP31 climate conference in November 2026, establishing standardized metrics to monitor international funding promises and enforce sustainable natural resource management across member states.
TE/Sf/lb/abj/APA