Isangi people living on the Congo River. Image by Julien Harneis from Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0 Deed)

By Grace Kobare

The Congo Basin has the world’s second-largest rainforest, surpassed only by the Amazon Basin. It's a mix of rivers, forests, grasslands, and swamps, also known for its high levels of biodiversity. However, the region has been facing increasing logging, infrastructure projects, and mining of minerals such as coltan, diamonds, and gold, which impact the environment and wildlife.

About the Congo Basin

The Congo Basin has been occupied and used by humans for over 50,000 years. It supports 75 million people with food, water, and shelter. Rich in wood, oil, and minerals, it serves as a vast carbon sink of global importance for the regulation of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. The Basin’s forest also regulates regional and local weather patterns and helps circulate crucial water sources for a large area of Africa.

Some of the Basin’s most famous residents include forest elephants, gorillas, chimpanzees, okapi, leopards, hippos, buffalo, and lions. Nine countries (Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zambia) have part of their territory in the Congo Basin. However, six countries with extensive forest cover in the region are generally associated with the Congo rainforest: Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon. It has been reported by the World Wide Fund (WWF) that the Congo Basin contains over 10,000 plant species, with 30 percent being unique to the area. Its forests shelter endangered animals, over 400 mammal species, and more than 1,000 bird species. Some of the species have a significant role in shaping the character of their forest home. For example, Central African forests generally have taller trees but a lower density of small trees than forests in the Amazon or Borneo. 

Major challenges in the Congo Basin

Many people, especially Indigenous communities, depend on the Congo Basin for food, water, and materials to support their farming. In some parts of the DRC, Cameroon, and Gabon, economic hardship has worsened the situation. Due to economic pressures and a lack of job in urban areas, many unemployed people from cities are moving back to the forest to hunt for food and earn a living, which puts more pressure on wildlife and natural resources.

As stated by Greenpeace, investors from different countries have been rushing to Africa in recent years to take advantage of its rich natural resources. Unfortunately, this is often done in ways that harm local communities and the environment. Many companies are buying or leasing huge pieces of land in Africa to extract resources and export them. The rapid and large-scale takeover of land is being called “land-grabbing” because of how fast it happens and because some of the deals are not transparent. The United Nations warns that these deals could reduce people's access to food, slow long-term economic growth, and destroy valuable natural areas. 

International companies are setting up large farms to grow crops like palm oil and rubber in the Congo Basin. These farms often cause massive deforestation and lead to conflicts with local communities. Unsustainable and illegal logging in the Congo Basin is causing serious harm to the environment and local communities. Both large and small companies are cutting down trees at an alarming rate, leading to deforestation, loss of wildlife habitats, and making the region more vulnerable to climate change. For years, valuable trees have been illegally harvested and exported for use in products like furniture and flooring. Even today, timber from illegal logging in the Congo Basin is being shipped worldwide, including to the United States, European Union (EU) countries, and increasingly to China. The US and the EU have laws in place to stop the import of illegal timber — the Lacey Act in the US and the EU Timber Regulation. These laws are starting to take effect and making businesses responsible for checking where their wood comes from. However, as long as illegal timber can still be sent to China, processed into finished goods, and then sold globally, there will always be incentives for companies to keep cutting down trees illegally in the Congo Basin.

The Congo Basin is one of the world’s last carbon sinks and a vital home to biodiversity. Protecting it is crucial, but this must be balanced with the needs of some of the world’s poorest communities.

For many in the DRC, industries like timber and coltan mining offer a rare economic opportunity. The challenge is finding a way to lift people out of poverty while preserving the environment. With the right policies, this balance is possible. Projects like the Grand Inga Dam which is a plan to build seven hydroelectric power stations at Inga Falls in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), is expected to produce about 40 gigawatts of electricity which is more than twice the power of China’s Three Gorges Dam, the largest hydroelectric dam in the world. Supporters claim that the project will help provide more reliable electricity in Africa, create jobs, and boost household incomes. If the project is managed well, it could make the DRC a leader in renewable energy. Sustainable, ethical coltan mining could also boost the economy without destroying the basin; however, currently, the industry is riddled with human rights violations, such as child labor.

More broadly, if policymakers factor biodiversity into economic decisions as highlighted by Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta from the University of Cambridge in the 2021 Dasgupta Review, who emphasized that if nature is not properly cared for, there could be serious economic and environmental consequences. But if the basin is properly cared for, both people and economies will thrive in the long run.

Hope for the future

According to a report by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), if deforestation and forest degradation continue unchecked, at least 27 percent of the undisturbed rainforests in the Congo Basin that existed in 2020 will be lost by 2050.

Researchers have emphasized that better land use policies such as creating protected areas, forest concessions, and community forests can help reduce deforestation and forest degradation. According to Pierre Ploton from the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD), these approaches not only protect the forests but also support local communities by involving them in conservation while helping them meet their daily needs.

Experts also pointed out that Central Africa is a vital region for protecting global biodiversity due to its rich natural heritage and many species found nowhere else. Richard Atyi, the regional convener for Central Africa at CIFOR-ICRAF, said the region's ecosystems are a shared resource that support millions of people today and must be protected for future generations. He stressed that the responsibility to safeguard this biodiversity lies not only with the countries of Central Africa but also with the global community.