Congo Basin Forests

The vast forest of the Congo Basin is the second-largest tropical rainforest on Earth and serves as the lungs of Africa. It’s an incredibly rich and diverse ecosystem that provides food, freshwater, shelter and medicine for tens of millions of local and Indigenous Peoples and is home to critically endangered wildlife species.

Of the hundreds of mammal species discovered in the Congo Basin so far — including forest elephants, gorillas, chimpanzees, and okapis — 39 are found nowhere else on Earth. Of its estimated 10,000 plant species, 3,300 are also unique to the region.

The Congo Basin 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. The soils and plants of the Congo Basin rainforest store incredible amounts of carbon, preventing it from being emitted into our atmosphere and fueling climate change. Forests alone in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are estimated to be the fourth-largest terrestrial carbon reservoir in the world.