“Gabon has become the first African country to receive payment for reducing carbon emissions by protecting its rainforest.
“The UN-backed Central African Forest Initiative (Cafi) has handed over $17m (£12m) - the first tranche of a $150m deal struck in 2019.”

First things first: Where is Gabon?

Population: 2.1 million. Size: about the same as the UK.

Here’s the clincher though:

“Nearly 90% of Gabon is covered by forest, which captures more carbon than the country emits.”

Amazing. It’s like Cambodia before Hun Sen and his merry henchmen got to work. Or like Indonesia pre-Nutella.

“Rainforests are vital for absorbing the globe's climate-heating emissions.
“Gabon has been able to show that it managed to reduce deforestation and so lower its carbon emissions in 2016 and 2017 compared to the previous decade, Cafi says.
“As a result Norway, through Cafi, has paid Gabon $17m based on a formula relating to the number of tonnes of carbon that would otherwise have been released. The rest of the $150m should be handed over in the coming years.”

Everything with a pinch of salt though. There’s both good and bad mixed up here:

“Gabon has launched a number of conservation schemes in recent years, including the creation of 13 national parks and a project to combat illegal logging.
“Nevertheless, the country wants to earn more money from timber and says it will continue to harvest trees and increase the value of the sector by processing more of the raw material at home.
“The charity Rainforest Foundation UK, which works on rainforest protection and community land rights, told the BBC that while money to protect forests is important, this payment "risks being a public relations exercise".
“It points to data from the monitoring group Global Forest Watch which shows that 2017 saw one of the highest rates of forest loss in Gabon since 2001.
“The government says that its monitoring shows that the country can maintain its carbon stocks through sustainable forestry.”

Still, these results from Gabon are more encouraging than usual. Let’s check back in a few years.