The 4th edition of the “One Planet Summit” was held on Monday January 11, 2021 in Paris, France. Four major themes were developed during this international conference. This is the protection of terrestrial and marine ecosystems; promotion of agroecology; mobilization of funding and the link between deforestation, species preservation and human health. Invited by French President Emmanuel Macron, the Congolese Head of State, Félix Tshisekedi, recalled the important commitments made by his country in favor of the preservation of tropical forests.
The French capital hosted Monday, January 11, 2021, the 2nd edition of the One Planet Summit placed under the theme of biodiversity. This year’s summit aims to adopt a new global roadmap for protecting ecosystems. In his speech, the President of the Republic of Congo, Félix Tshisekedi, said his country is committed to strengthening the legal framework to protect forests and fight against deforestation. “We have promulgated a forest code which lays down the fundamental principles in terms of forest management and protection. This text gives a guarantee to local communities and smallholders of access rights to forests and trees with the objective not only of eradicating poverty but also of imposing on them a long-term approach to forest management in order to stimulate more ecological transition and fight against deforestation ”, he declared.
The DRC, which has a forest cover estimated at 155 million hectares representing nearly 10% of the world’s tropical forests and 47% of that of Africa and which has a biodiversity characterized by an imposing plant complex and a varied and rare facies, adopted, according to the Congolese President, policies aimed at preserving forests against deforestation and encouraging reversal of the process of land degradation and end the loss of biodiversity. Félix Tshisekedi reiterated the commitment of the DRC to join the Alliance for the Preservation of Tropical Forests launched in New York in September 2019.
With this summit, held largely by video conference because of the coronavirus pandemic, France wanted to relaunch green diplomacy, after a blank year in terms of international summits. It was preceded by a meeting devoted to the “great green wall” which fights against desertification in eleven countries south of the Sahara.
The green wall, it is 8000 kilometers of greenery going from Dakar to Djibouti, consists in particular in planting trees and thus contributing to the economic and ecological transformation of a strip going from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. More than 14 billion dollars were announced during this One planet Summit for a “great green wall”.
