National Steering Committee for Forest Zoning - Democratic Republic of Congo

Background

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) contains more than 145 million hectares of tropical moist, dry and mountain forests, the second largest area of tropical forest in the world.  The riches of these forests furnish food, medicine, energy, construction materials and revenue to more than 40 million Congolese.  The country is emerging from a decade of multiple conflicts that have exacerbated the illegal removal of natural resources. Since 2002, with the help of its partners, the DRC has committed itself to improving the governance of the forest and nature conservation sector so that the economic benefit from the exploitation of resources may be more widely and more equitable distributed.  Forest zoning is a major part of this long term commitment.

Reason for Zoning
Forest zoning constitutes an essential process for the sustainable management of forest resources of the DRC.  This step is of capital importance in the government’s vision. With promulgation of the 2002 Forest Code, zoning has become a paramount exercise for the planning and rational use of forests.  In order to determine in a transparent and rational way the three categories of space envisioned by the law and to guide a coherent implementation of forest policy on the ground, the Government wants to set up a participative planning process. From this process there must develop a national land management plan for forested lands; an indispensable tool for managing well the forested territories of the country. Such a plan will make it possible to clarify and make safe the rights of various users of the lands, prevent local conflicts and land despoliation, knowing that there already exists various kinds of zoned forests.

Responsibilities of The National Steering Committee for Forest Zoning

The National Steering Committee for Forest Zoning (NSCFZ) is an entity charged to support the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation of Nature, and Tourism in the process of forest zoning.

For this reason, it exercises the following mandate:

1. To provide broad direction on the implementation of forest zoning in relation to the priorities of the Government;
2. To exchange and harmonize various points of view on the current sectoral attributions, to conclude the process of forest zoning, and to describe forest areas subject to zoning;
3. To harmonize the needs and interests of the various stakeholders who compete in the use of space and the natural resources;
4. To propose all reforms to solve conflicts among various legislation in force;
5. To validate the guiding documents and the results relating to the process of Zoning;
6. To deliver its opinions on boundaries of forests proposed for zoning by making sure that these boundaries do not conflict with other current or potential uses;
7. To adopt the updates of the official map (géodatabase) of land tenures at the national scales indicating in particular the categories of forests, the mining claims, agro-industrial plantations, hydroelectric projects and all other infrastructures;
8. To review and deliver its opinions to the Minister any relative file on zoning which is entrusted to him.