Ahead of Summit of the Three Basins: CSOs urge world leaders to commit to protect forests in critical basins.

Indigenous and civil society organisations have called on world leaders gathering at the Summit of the Three Basins, which begins today in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, to commit to protecting tropical forests in these critical basins and to scale up rights-based legal protections.
This was during a press briefing held virtually October 24, ahead of the Summit.
During the press briefing, research group, Earth Insight, and its global partners released a range of new findings in a report entitled “Three Basins Threat Report: Fossil Fuel, Mining, and Industrial Expansion Threats to Forests and Communities”.
The report dives into the immediate threat to tropical forests posed by fossil fuel expansion, which - regardless of location - threatens to warm the planet enough to push tropical forests to the brink, threatening indigenous communities, biodiversity, and freshwater.
As the new maps in the report show, even as the energy transition holds promise for getting the world - and these places - off of fossil fuels, other threats also loom large, including mining of energy transition metals and materials, logging, and agriculture.
Other publishing partners of the report include: Rainforest Foundation UK, DRC-based organisation Dynamique des Groupes des Peuples Autochtones, DGPA, Cameroon-based AJESH, Auriga Nusantara from Indonesia, and COICA and the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Alliance from the Amazon basin.
The briefing closed with a call-to-action from indigenous, community, and civil society leaders to put human rights at the centre of the Three Basins Initiative.
Across the three basins, it was found out that: Nearly 20% of intact tropical forests in the three basins are now in active and potential oil and gas concessions; nearly 25% of intact tropical forests in the Amazon and Congo basins are now in active or potential mining concessions; in Indonesia, half of all nickel concessions (primarily for EV’s) overlap with natural forests and a fivefold risk of deforestation/degradation is possible if nickel mining permits expand to cover the full deposit area and over 200 million people, including a significant proportion of indigenous and local communities, or about 20% of the population in the three basin regions, live within oil and gas blocks.

Case of Congo basin
In the Congo basin, the report says: “More than 72 million hectares or more than 39% of undisturbed Tropical Moist Forests in the Congo Basin now overlap with oil and gas blocks; nearly 48 million hectares or nearly 27% of undisturbed Tropical Moist Forests overlap with mining concessions in the Congo basin”. 
It also says “over 150 distinct ethnic groups call the Congo Basin region home and more than 17,000 populated places (villages, communities, towns, etc.) are now in oil and gas blocks and more than 11,000 populated places both inclusive of Indigenous and forest-dependent people are located in mining concessions in the Congo basin region”. 
Tyson Miller, Executive Director of Earth Insight, said: “World leaders gathering at the Summit of the Three Basins have a tremendous opportunity to heed the warnings that tipping point thresholds are revealing in the Amazon and beyond and to build an alliance that stops and reverses trajectories of forest fragmentation and deforestation now. Not seven years from now”.
“Committing to an immediate moratorium on industrial activity in primary and intact forests is vital and will create space for new regional and international financial and other solutions to emerge that balance economic development needs with the planetary boundaries,” he added. 
On his part, Joe Eisen, Executive Director of Rainforest Foundation UK, noted that: “The report lays bare the stark choice between continuing down the path of ever-expanding extractivism or finding a way to value and protect our planet. The message from Indigenous and environmental leaders of the three rainforest basins is clear: there can be no lasting solutions to tropical forest loss without recognising and empowering the communities who live in them”.

New paradigm of restoration, preservation
Meanwhile, - Harrison Nnoko, Director Cameroon-based AJESH, said: “The compounding effects of industrial activities in primary and priority forests can turn a rich ecosystem into a toxic wasteland. But by committing to protect these critical forests, our leaders can support landscapes of life where community leadership and stewardship can advance a new paradigm of restoration and preservation”.
The Summit of Three Basins brings together leaders from the Amazon, Congo and Borneo-Mekong-Southeast Asia regions to form a global coalition. 
The central vision of the Summit for the preservation and restoration of the planet’s three ecological lungs is based on objectives to promote scientific and technical cooperation, strengthen capacities, and increase influence in multilateral forums for environmental advocacy; establish effective global governance to manage environmental and climate challenges on a planetary scale and develop a common strategy to stimulate investment projects aimed at combating climate change and preserving biodiversity.
It will close October 28.