The Congo Forest

The vast forest of the Congo Basin is the second largest tropical rainforest on earth and the lungs of Africa. Its incredibly rich and diverse ecosystem provides food, fresh water, shelter and medicine for tens of millions of people, and is home to many critically endangered species including forest elephants, gorillas, bonobos and okapis. Of the hundreds of mammal species discovered there so far, 39 are found nowhere else on Earth, and of its estimated 10,000 plant species, 3,300 are unique to the region.

The rainforest supports an astonishing range of life, within its teeming rivers, swamps and savannahs. But it also helps to sustain life across the whole planet. An estimated 8% of the earth’s carbon that is stored in living forests worldwide is stored in the forests of the DRC, making the country the fourth largest carbon reservoir in the world. The Congo Basin rainforest plays a critical role in regulating the global climate and halting runaway climate change, for the benefit of the entire biosphere.

But the forest, and the people and animals that depend upon it, are under threat as the unquenchable global thirst for natural resources, crops and foodstuffs means African lands are, more than ever, a target for investors. The solutions to these threats lie firmly with those who live there.

The latest updates

 

Chimps' survival of little concern to agribusiness

Blog entry by Irene Wabiwa | 23 February, 2015 1 comment

The chimpanzee is one of mankind's closest relatives. However there are many of us who do not treat them with what could be called familial affection. Chimps and other primates in Africa face an increasing number of threats to their...

Cameroon timber trade: High risk, low reward

Blog entry by Hilde Stroot | 23 January, 2015 2 comments

The fight against illegal logging in Cameroon has been a long one – several decades long in fact. Therefore the conclusion from the influential think tank Chatham House that this process has all but stalled must have been hard to...

Tropical deforestation is bad news – the science keeps telling us

Blog entry by Dr Janet Cotter | 9 January, 2015 10 comments

Deforestation is very bad news for the environment and for the climate. It is bad news for biodiversity and releases greenhouses gases into the atmosphere – we know that. But the science is increasingly certain that deforestation is...

No journey too far to protect Congo's forests

Blog entry by Danielle Van Oijen | 9 December, 2014 1 comment

The Democratic Republic of Congo is roughly the same size as Western Europe. However its infrastructure is a far different proposition, and as a result it is rare – verging on impossible – that people from different parts of the...

Caught up in the battle against Congo's irresponsible loggers

Blog entry by Sylvain Trottier | 13 November, 2014 2 comments

"It's too far away", "there's nothing to see or do there", "it's too hard to get to..." The reasons people find to avoid the long journey to some of the Democratic Republic of Congo's many remote forested areas are numerous. ...

11 - 15 of 57 results.

Categories