"OPEC for rainforests": Brazil, Indonesia and the DRC united for their carbon credits

Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are home to 52% of the world's remaining tropical forests. These are critical regions in the fight against climate change.

These three countries – which are home to the Amazon, the Congo basin and the forests of Borneo and Sumatra – were already part of those that signed an agreement at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021 to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030, the "Declaration on Forests and Land Use".

More recently, about 1 month ago, according to the final pre-COP27 communiqué that took place in Kinshasa, capital of the DRC, these three great nations are now in negotiations to form a "strategic alliance" to coordinate their conservation, " in particular to obtain the price per ton of carbon".

Oscar Soria, campaign director for activist website Avaaz, said the alliance could be an “OPEC for rainforests” similar to the oil producers' cartel, which coordinates production levels and prices.

“These three ecosystems are critical to the ecological stability of the world, and the answer for these forests to thrive lies with the people who live in them.”

Click on the image below - part of the post from Soria on Twitter, over picture with alliance representatives - to read the pre-COP27 press release "Carbon Credit: Brazil, Indonesia and the DRC unite" and here for another article by L'Agence congolaise de presse (ACP), detailing a little more of what was discussed between Vice -Prime Minister and Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development of the DRC, Eve Bazaiba, Leonardo Cleaver de Athayde, Ambassador and Director of the Department of Sustainable Development at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil, and Laksmi Dhewanthi, Director General of Climate Change at the Ministry of Indonesia's Environment and Forests.