Logging mostly illegal continues in Congo, despite a moratorium on new forestry contracts in place since 2002. Rich countries have pledged billions of dollars under the scheme for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), which effectively pays developing countries not to cut their forests down. But developing countries complain that, apart from a deal with Norway and Indonesia worth $1 billion to halt licenses for clearing Borneo's forests, funds have been slow to trickle out.

Environmental experts from 35 countries have gathered in the Congo Republic, DRC's smaller neighbor, on Tuesday for a week-long summit seeking ways to protect the world's three largest rainforests -- the Amazon in South America, the Congo in Central Africa and the Borneo-Mekong in Indonesia. The outcome of the summit could play a role in the preservation of some 80 percent of the world's remaining tropical forest, seen by experts as key to offsetting rising global emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide - reports Thomson Reuters.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/31/us-congo-democratic-forests-id...