Second of 3 parts
The work also has implications far beyond Central Africa. The Congo basin is a vast warehouse of carbon; its swamps alone store around 29 billion tons of the planet-warming element—about three years’ worth of global greenhouse gas emissions.
“The Congo Basin is an ecosystem with planetary importance,” says George Akwah, a program management officer with UNEP. “Protecting it is vital for safeguarding biodiversity, countering climate change and improving the lives of millions.”
The Congo Basin houses the Earth’s second-largest contiguous block of tropical rainforest after the Amazon. This ecosystem sustains tens of millions of people and, according to a study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is a haven for one in five living species. But it’s facing increasing threats.
The expansion of farming and mining has led to widespread deforestation. Nearly 19,000 square kilometers of forests were “disturbed” annually between 2015 and 2020, according to a study by the Central Africa Forest Commission, a research organization.
Indigenous communities, who have been safeguarding rainforests for generations, have often suffered the most from this deforestation, says Akwah.
There are fears that if the loss continues, it could impoverish millions, threaten some of Africa’s most iconic animals and hamper the basin’s ability to both store and absorb carbon.
That’s why UNEP launched the effort to support sustainable development across the countries of the Congo Basin. Launched four years ago, it’s formally known as the Congo Basin Landscapes Initiative.
The work is designed in part to support the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, a landmark 2022 agreement to protect and restore the natural world. A key goal of that agreement is making farming more sustainable and re-enforcing the land rights of Indigenous Peoples.
(To be continued) UNEP News
