The Congo Basin is the world’s second largest river basin, covering more than 1.3 million square miles (3.4 million square kilometers) of west-central Africa. It straddles the equator and encompasses a massive stretch of tropical rainforest, rivers, swamps, and peatlands that together form one of the most biologically rich and climatically important regions on Earth. Only the Amazon Basin is larger.
Where the Congo Basin Is
The basin spans seven countries: nearly all of the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, western Zambia, northern Angola, and parts of Cameroon and Tanzania. At its heart is the Congo River, Africa’s second longest river at 2,900 miles (4,700 km). The river discharges roughly 1.45 million cubic feet of water per second into the Atlantic Ocean, making it the second most powerful river in the world after the Amazon.
The landscape is far from uniform. What looks like a single green carpet from satellite imagery is actually a mosaic of distinct forest types: lowland rainforest, swamp forest, patches dominated by a single tree species, and areas thick with large-leafed understory plants. This variety creates a patchwork of habitats, each supporting different communities of plants and animals.
Wildlife and Plant Life
One in five of Earth’s living species calls the Congo Basin home. The numbers are staggering: at least 400 mammal species, 1,000 bird species, and 700 fish species. Around 10,000 species of tropical plants grow in the basin, and 30 percent of those are found nowhere else on the planet.
The region is especially important for great apes. It holds the largest number and greatest diversity of great ape species of any place on Earth, including bonobos, gorillas, and chimpanzees. Bonobos exist only in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and a significant share of the remaining population lives within Salonga National Park, one of the world’s largest protected areas (bigger than the state of Maryland). The basin is also home to the critically endangered forest elephant, which is smaller and more elusive than its savanna cousin and plays a key role in seed dispersal throughout the forest.
Why It Matters for the Climate
The Congo Basin acts as a giant carbon warehouse. Its trees absorb and store vast quantities of carbon dioxide, helping to regulate the global climate. But much of the basin’s carbon isn’t in the trees at all. Beneath a region called the Cuvette Centrale lies a massive peatland complex, a waterlogged landscape where partially decomposed plant material has been accumulating for thousands of years. A 2017 study published in Nature estimated that these peatlands alone store approximately 30.6 billion metric tons of carbon belowground, a quantity roughly equal to all the carbon held in the above-ground forests of the entire Congo Basin combined.
That underground carbon is vulnerable. If the peatlands dry out due to reduced rainfall or are disturbed by development, they could release enormous amounts of stored carbon into the atmosphere. Protecting these peatlands is considered one of the most cost-effective climate strategies available, since the carbon is already locked away and simply needs to stay there.
People of the Forest
Roughly 900,000 indigenous forest foragers live across nine countries in Central Africa, representing at least 15 ethnic groups who speak 17 languages from six different language families. These communities have deep roots in the region. Genetic evidence suggests that the two major branches of Congo Basin forager populations, the Western groups (including the Aka, Mbendjele, Baka, and Bakola) and the Eastern groups (including the Mbuti, Efe, and Twa), diverged between 20,000 and 30,000 years ago.
These communities rely on the forest for food, medicine, shelter, and cultural identity. The BaYaka, for example, live along rivers in the northern Republic of the Congo and maintain diverse livelihoods built around deep knowledge of forest plants, animals, and seasonal cycles. Beyond indigenous groups, tens of millions of people across the basin depend on its forests for firewood, bushmeat, and freshwater.
Logging and Resource Extraction
Industrial logging has been a major economic activity in Congo Basin countries for over four decades. Compared to other tropical regions, logging here tends to be highly selective. Typically only one or two trees per hectare are harvested, and studies show that this level of extraction damages about 10 percent of the surrounding forest area, with vegetation recovering relatively quickly. Most large mammal species, including elephants and gorillas, continue to thrive in lightly logged forests, though chimpanzees appear to be negatively affected.
The bigger ecological concern tied to logging isn’t always the tree cutting itself but the roads that come with it. Logging roads open previously remote forest to hunters, settlers, and further development. The commercial bushmeat trade, which supplies growing urban markets with monkeys, antelopes, gorillas, and bonobos, expands rapidly along these new access routes. Rising global demand for copper and other minerals has also increased pressure on forested land, reshaping how forests are managed and governed across the region.
Deforestation and Protection
Forest loss in the Congo Basin is accelerating. In 2024, the basin lost 780,000 hectares of primary forest, an area roughly four times the size of Douala, one of Central Africa’s largest cities. That represents 0.44 percent of the basin’s remaining primary forest, up from 0.38 percent the year before. While these percentages sound small, they compound over time and the forests being cleared are often pristine, irreplaceable ecosystems.
The drivers of deforestation are a mix of small-scale farming, charcoal production, industrial agriculture, and infrastructure development. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which contains the largest share of the basin’s forest, about 11 percent of national territory (64 million acres) is currently under some form of protected status. The government has committed to expanding that to 15 to 17 percent, though enforcement in existing protected areas remains a persistent challenge given the vast distances, limited funding, and competing economic pressures involved.
The Congo Basin sits at a crossroads. It remains far more intact than the Amazon or the forests of Southeast Asia, but the pace of change is quickening. What happens to this region over the coming decades will shape not only the future of Central Africa’s communities and wildlife but the trajectory of the global climate.