Independent Forest Monitoring in the Congo Basin: Taking Stock and Thinking Ahead

This paper discusses the key challenges faced by independent forest monitoring (IFM) organizations in the Congo Basin and proposes recommendations for practitioners, policymakers, NGOs, and donors to improve the efficiency of IFM in the region, expand the model geographically, and move it beyond timber.

WRI and its partners, Field Legality Advisory Group (FLAG) and Resource Extraction Monitoring (REM), evaluated the achievements of IFM in the Congo Basin since 2000. This analysis was based on information from 469 IFM mission reports published by 11 IFM organizations between 2001 and 2020.