Grande Mayumba

The Congo Basin – the world’s second largest tropical forest spanning six countries in Central Africa – is the most important global carbon sink after the Amazon. Balancing the urgent need for economic diversification in the region to reduce dependency on oil revenues with the need to create social upliftment, protect the natural environment and safeguard biodiversity has global implications.

Tropical forest covers 85% of Gabon’s territory. The 2020 Environmental Performance Index published by Yale’s Centre for Environmental Law and Policy and the Centre for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University ranks the country as the second highest performer in Africa across a range of environmental indicators.

Gabon has demonstrated leadership in pioneering new models for sustainable green growth anchored in the developmental realities of the Congo Basin. A powerful voice in the global climate change arena, the country has set out a national development strategy, Gabon Emergent, which advocates a progressive approach to economic diversification, transforming natural resources carefully and deliberately to create value today and preserve value for future generations.

Grande Mayumba is a pioneering model for sustainable green growth in the Congo Basin

The project has been designed to reflect the principles of Gabon Emergent and to incorporate globally recognised environmental and climate science standards and methodologies.

The African Conservation Development Group holds the rights to consolidate and sustainably develop a land area of 732,000 hectares in Nyanga Province in southern Gabon.

The rights are held under effective 50-year and an 83-year state leases – bails emphytéotiques – (including renewal periods), which include all terrestrial land-use rights to develop the project site on the basis of ecologically sound and economically optimal long-term land management as detailed in the Grande Mayumba Sustainable Development Plan. The project is a de facto pilot for Gabon’s National Land-Use Plan and was developed in accordance with the country’s Sustainable Development Law, promulgated in 2014, which sets out the principles, objectives and financial mechanisms to ensure sustainable development in Gabon.

The Grande Mayumba Sustainable Development Plan details the establishment of forestry, agriculture, agroforestry, ecotourism and fisheries businesses in the region, supported by transport, power, communications and municipal infrastructure. These businesses will be aided in the achievement of environmental and economic sustainability through the securitisation of environmental rights and natural resource values attributable to the land.