The aim of the meeting "will be to make... the regional strategy of sustainable management of forest ecosystems accessible to the public and to agree on the financing of the plan," Congo Republic's forestry minister Henri Djombo told AFP.

Djombo is also the current head of the Conference of Ministers in Charge of Central African Forests (COMIFAC), recognised by the Congo Basin Forest Partnership, which was launched two years ago in South Africa, as the central policy- and decision-making body for the conservation and sustainable management of forests in Central Africa.

At a COMIFAC meeting held in Paris in January last year, donors pledged 300 million US dollars (246 million dollars) to back a regional forestry strategy, which would include replanting forests and preserving endangered woodland and marine animal species in the Congo Basin.

The total cost of the 10-year plan is estimated at 1.5 billion US dollars.

But none of the pledged 300 million dollars has been released because the regional plan has not been finalised.

"We agreed in Paris to hold another meeting three months later in Brazzaville. It's now been nearly a year and a half since we met. We have set as our priority the finalisation of the... regional strategy to manage forest, marine and coastal ecosystems. Now the plan is available and the time has come for us to work together on how to use the promised funding," said Djombo.

To avoid the regional plan running aground halfway through its 10-year life, Djombo said more funds are needed.

"We will have to mobilise new funds, from our current partners as well as new partners because we have to secure long-term financing," he said.

The six nations in the Congo Basin -- Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon -- announced a so-called "convergence plan" in August last year, under which they made commitments for the sustainable development of the region's forestland.

The project aims to create a network of natural parks and protected areas covering 100,000 square kilometers (37,000 square miles) and managed forests covering about 200,000 square kilometers in total -- about three-quarters the size of Japan.

The Congo Basin Forest Partnership was launched at the UN conference on sustainable development in Johannesburg in 2002 which heard evidence that the region's forests were disappearing because of population growth, over-grazing, illegal logging, mining activities, civil wars and environmental destruction.

In all, Africa is estimated to have lost at least 10 percent of its forested area since the 1980s.

The partnership is backed by the United States, European Union, Britain, Germany, Canada, and South Africa.

Congo Basin forest land represents 18 percent of the world's tropical rain forest and 70 percent of the African continent's plant cover. More than 600 species of tree and 10,000 animal species grow and live in the forests of the Congo Basin.

But all the partnership's member states are struggling under heavy debt burdens, or to emerge from war, and have severe difficulty in managing their environmental resources.

According to Djombo, delegates at the meeting in Brazzaville will discuss ways of converting debt into nature conservation projects.

"We will look at this question with donors. No country must be discriminated against," he said.

TERRA.WIRE