Young forestry champions in attendance at the Zámba Heritage Congress. PHOTO/FSC.
By PATRICK MAYOYO
When delegates from across Africa and beyond gathered in Nairobi between February 10 and 12 for the inaugural Zamba Heritage Congress, the future of African forests felt palpably on the line. I sat through three days of debate convinced that we were confronting not merely an environmental dilemma, but a defining economic and geo-political test for the continent.
Organised by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Africa in partnership with the Government of Kenya, the congress launched the Zamba Heritage Initiative, an ambitious plan to conserve 30 million hectares of forest and place 5 million hectares under formal protection across the continent.
Yet the most striking feature of the discussions was not the scale of the pledge, but the candour with which policy makers, scientists, climate change experts, environmental conservationists and finance specialists acknowledged what is going wrong.
Africa’s forests cover some 635 million hectares; about 16 percent of the world’s forest area, and harbour a quarter of global terrestrial biodiversity. They are indispensable carbon sinks and cultural landscapes. And yet we are losing between 3.3 million and 3.9 million hectares annually.
From the Miombo woodloands of Southern Africa to the vast Congo Basin, deforestation and forest degradation now often exceeds regeneration. As one speaker warned, parts of our forest estate are releasing more carbon than they absorb.
The economic case for action is overwhelming. Peter Gondo, a forestry specialist, laid out the numbers with sobering clarity. Global annual investment in forests stood at roughly $84 billion in 2023. To meet the targets embedded in the Rio Conventions on climate, biodiversity and land degradation, that figure must rise to $300 billion by 2030 and almost $500billion by 2050. Africa’s forest finance gap alone is estimated at $216billion a year.
INFOGRAPHIC/FAO.
This is not an abstract shortfall. Kenya loses an estimated US$ 68 million annually to deforestation. Ghana forfeits roughly $134million, about 2.6 per cent of its GDP, through forest degradation. These losses compound as floods intensify, droughts lengthen and water treatment costs rise because catchments are stripped bare. Public budgets already stretched by debt servicing are forced to divert scarce funds to disaster response.
Yet even as Africa pays the price of forest loss, it captures little of the upside from sustainable management. In 2019 the continent exported just US$ 6 billion in timber products, compared with around US$ 100 billion from EU, despite producing more raw wood. Much of our harvest is burned as firewood or charcoal. Value addition remains minimal; industrial processing capacity is weak.
This is a structural failure. We continue to export raw logs and import finished furniture. We lament low foreign exchange earnings while tolerating policy incoherence, opaque concession regimes and insecure land tenure.
Reform must begin with clarity of ownership, tree and land rights that empower communities and attract responsible capital. Public-private partnerships, blended finance vehicles and digital traceability systems can help de-risk investment and curb illegal logging.
But finance alone will not suffice. Dr Yemi Katerere, a veteran voice in climate policy, delivered perhaps the most uncomfortable truth: Africa negotiates as 54 small markets rather than one continental force. The result is predictable. African carbon credits trade at a discount relative to similar offsets elsewhere. The fragmentation of standards, regulatory frameworks and political messaging dilutes our bargaining power.
Contrast this with the cohesion of the European Union in trade disputes or climate diplomacy. When the bloc speaks, it speaks with a single market behind it. African states, by comparison, often pursue bilateral deals, undercutting one another in the process. The absence of a unified platform in global carbon markets perpetuates undervaluation.
Dr Yemi Katerere the Executive Director of the African CSOs Biodiversity Alliance (ACBA). PHOTO/FSC.
This matters profoundly at a moment when the architecture of climate finance is evolving. The Paris Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework offer frameworks, but not enforcement.
Mechanisms such as the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF) promise innovation, yet lack binding commitments. Without a coordinated African position, these instruments risk reproducing old asymmetries under green branding.
A continental approach to carbon markets, harmonised standards, pooled negotiation, shared registries; would raise prices and credibility simultaneously. It would also embed the polluter pays principle in financial flows, ensuring that those historically responsible for emissions shoulder a fairer share of mitigation costs.
Encouragingly, examples of regional ambition do exist. The African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative aims to restore 100million hectares of degraded land. The Great Green Wall Initiative seeks to regenerate vast Sahelian landscapes. Mozambique’s leadership of the Miombo Initiative within the Southern African Development Community SADC) points to the potential for cross-border industrial policy in sustainable timber.
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) could be transformative if leveraged properly. By lowering intra-African tariffs and easing currency and visa barriers, it can stimulate regional value chains in processed wood products rather than perpetuating extractive exports. A single market for certified timber and carbon credits would strengthen pricing power and investor confidence.
However, transformative change must also be social. Forest governance that excludes indigenous communities is doomed to fail. Traditional custodians possess ecological knowledge honed over generations. Secure community forestry rights have repeatedly demonstrated lower deforestation rates than centrally managed reserves. Placing people at the centre of forest policy is not romanticism; it is pragmatic economics.
INFOGRAPHIC/ SKYPEG.
There is, above all, a need for a paradigm shift in how we value forests. They are not idle land awaiting conversion to farms or mines. They are infrastructure; natural capital that regulates rainfall, stabilises soils and stores carbon.
Accounting systems that ignore these services distort investment decisions. Integrating natural capital into national accounts would illuminate the true cost of deforestation.
Why does this matter beyond Africa? Because the continent’s forests are a global public good. If the Congo Basin tips from sink to source, the consequences will not respect borders. Global climate targets will become unattainable, and the costs of adaptation will escalate everywhere.
As conference delegates left Nairobi I was persuaded that the Zámba Heritage Congress marked a turning point; but only if rhetoric yields to reform. We have a narrow window to correct systemic imbalances in forest finance and carbon pricing. That requires domestic governance reforms, regional economic integration and a unified diplomatic front.
Africa’s forests are our inheritance. Managed wisely, they are also our competitive advantage in a carbon-constrained world. Squandered, they will become yet another missed opportunity in the continent’s development story. The choice, laid bare over three intense days in Nairobi, could not be clearer.
