Beekeeping and breeding animals such as cane rats for food are needed to help tackle the unsustainable trade in bush meat in central Africa, conservation experts said on Friday.

Local populations rely on birds, reptiles and mammals including apes in the vast Congo Basin for food, but overhunting for so-called bush meat is leading to 'empty forest syndrome', according to a statement issued by a

The Republic of Congo will plant 1 million hectares of trees by 2020 to restore degraded forest and provide wood for paper and fuel, the president said on Friday.

President Denis Sassou N'Guesso made the announcement on the final day of a weeklong summit in the Congolese capital, aimed at tackling deforestation in the Amazon, Congo and Borneo-Mekong forest basins, the three largest in the world