Ten Central African countries, including Rwanda, have agreed to take part in a regional initiative to monitor the Congo Basin, one of the world’s largest primary rainforests.The other countries are Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Sao Tome and Principe."A new regional initiative will help 10 Central African countries to set up advanced national forest monitoring systems,” a statement from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) received by The New Times last week says.The monitoring project would be managed in conjunction with the Central Africa Forests Commission (COMIFAC), of which Rwanda is a member- whose core objective, according to the Minister of Natural Resources, Stanislas Kamanzi is to ensure sustainable management of forests in the Congo Basin. Minister Kamanzi noted that Rwanda’s laws are very elaborated and tight enough in the realm of conservation by international standard. The Congo Basin Forests Fund, launched by the Governments of Norway and the United Kingdom through the African Development Bank is funding the initiative at the tune of €6.1 million.The gross deforestation annual rate in the Congo Basin was 0.13 percent between 1990 and 2000, but it doubled in the period of 2000-2005, COMIFAC data showed.The 200 million hectares (494 million acres) or so of forests are second only to the Amazon rainforest in size, said to support livelihoods of some 60 million people.The main threats to these forests include land-use change, unsustainable logging and mining, according to the FAO. "The rates of forest cover change and the subsequent emissions from deforestation ... remain poorly understood partly due to the lack of up-to-date, accurate information on the current state of forests in the region,”The monitoring system was crucial to improving the protection of forests and sustainable management, the FAO’s forestry expert Eduardo Rojas said.FAO said it will provide technical support to the countries enabling them to use remote sensing technologies to estimate forest cover and forest cover changes as well as to estimate the amount of carbon stocks contained in forests in the region.Rwanda has successfully fought degradation of Gishwati forest which had been degraded by human activities. Two years ago, the government relocated to Kyanzarwe Sector in Rubavu, over 400 families who had encroached Gishwati forest in Nyabihu and Rubavu districts in an effort to protect the forest.