Gabon will pull forestry permits from firms that have not embraced an international standard on responsible logging by 2022, President Ali Bongo Ondimba said Wednesday.

Ondimba made the statement in support of a certification process run by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), an international NGO devoted to better forestry management.

By 2022, all loggers have to be "committed" to FSC certification, said the president.

"Any forestry business operating in Gabon that is not committed to the certification process will have its permit withdrawn," he said during a visit to a sawmill in the north of the country.

Oil-rich Gabon sees its forests, which cover 85 percent of its surface area, as a means of diversifying its economy.

Just over over two million hectares (4.9 million acres) -- 14 percent of forested land -- is FSC-certified in Gabon today.

In the Congo Basin, one of the world's richest sites for tropical timber, only Cameroon, Congo Brazzaville and Gabon have FSC certificates.

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