2023-07-12 14:51:39
DIG/ Strong of 12.5 million hectares of sustainably managed forest cover supporting over 400 tree speciesGabon is establishing itself as a model of sustainable timber production.
The country can be proud to have limited its average deforestation rate to less than 0.1% over the past three decades and is one of the few nations to have qualified.
Created in 2010, the industrial zone of Nkok (Zis) now hosts nearly 90 companies in the wood processing sector which together employ more than 6,000 people.
Activities range from the manufacture of bespoke furniture for high-end interior design boutiques in Europe and the United States to the production of millions of square meters of tropical veneer.
Around twenty companies saw and store around 40,000 cubic meters of wood each month on their own 40-hectare complex specially designed for this purpose.
In 2021, more than one million cubic meters of wood were processed there.
Gabon is also the first Congo Basin countries to have joined the regional Pan African Forest Certification (PAFC) system, which attests to the sustainable nature of forest management and the traceability of wood, from the forest to the finished product.
The wood processed in the Nkok ZIS is traced from entering the complex to the first processing unit using TraCer-Nkok, a tracking system specially developed to comply with European legislation on the import of wood products.
Each log entering the ZIS is thus recorded in a database, in order to guarantee end-to-end traceability.
“The challenge at Nkok is the traceability of the wood.
The ZIS must be free of illegally obtained timber”said Marc Ona, executive secretary of Brainforest, an NGO that is part of the TraCer implementation team.
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