Gabon has agreed to sell about six million jurisdictional forest-carbon credits to the German state-owned energy company SEFE, in what its government presents as Africa's first sovereign transaction of this type. Each credit represents one tonne of carbon dioxide emissions avoided through forest conservation at national scale.
The Gabonese Agency for the Development of the Green Economy, known as AGADEV, signed the agreements in London. The credits will be issued under the ART-TREES standard and are intended to qualify for CORSIA, the international aviation scheme that allows airlines to compensate part of their emissions.
Initial deliveries are expected in the first quarter of 2027. The financial terms and price per credit were not disclosed, preventing an immediate assessment of the deal's total value or comparison with other voluntary and regulated carbon markets.
Gabon argues that the credits reward long-standing protection rather than financing a new tree-planting programme. Forests cover nearly 90 per cent of the country, placing it inside the Congo Basin carbon sink. Officials also insist that the agreement does not sell land or transfer ownership and management of forests.
Revenue will remain in reserve until national regulations establish how benefits are distributed, including the share assigned to communities. That safeguard acknowledges a central problem in jurisdictional carbon markets: national accounting can generate income while local people bear land-use restrictions or provide the conservation work.
Gabonese environmental organisation Brainforest welcomed the transaction but demanded transparency over prices, revenues and participation by Indigenous peoples and forest communities. It also called for protection of customary land rights, which cannot be guaranteed by carbon-accounting standards alone.
The sale can demonstrate that preserving existing forests has measurable economic value, but its legitimacy depends on information that is still missing. Publication of contract terms, independent verification and a credible benefit-sharing rule will determine whether the credits finance conservation or merely provide an inexpensive offset for external emissions.
