Greenpeace on Thursday urged a top state prosecutor in the Democratic Republic of Congo to investigate allegations that six ex-government ministers granted forestry concessions in violation of a logging moratorium.

The Congo Basin Forest is the world's second largest rainforest after the Amazon, covering two-thirds of the surface of the DRC.

The vast forest plays a vital role in fighting climate change as a major absorber of carbon dioxide. A moratorium on new logging concessions has been in place since 2002.

However, there have long been complaints of irregularities surrounding concessions.

In April, Congolese Environment Minister Eve Bazaiba suspended 12 logging concessions that the country's financial auditor found had violated the moratorium.

She also suspended six other concessions last December.

On Thursday, Greenpeace and five other organisations said they had asked the state prosecutor of Congo's High Court to investigate six ex-government ministers allegedly involved in granting logging concessions between 2014 and 2020.

Irene Wabiwa, who works on the Congo Basin for Greenpeace, said the environmental group wants to establish who is responsible and to "punish the culprits".

"It's high time that impunity ceases to be the norm," she told AFP.

Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi announced last October, ahead of the COP26 climate summit, that he had ordered the suspension of all "doubtful" forestry contracts.

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