The Congo Basin and its forest ecosystems
The forest ecosystems of the Congo basin span across much of Central Africa, from the Atlantic Ocean's Gulf of Guinea to the mountains of the Albertine Rift in the east. With over 251 million hectares they constitute the second largest area of contiguous moist tropical forest left in the world and represent approximately one fifth of the world's remaining closed canopy tropical forest.
The Congo basin forests do not only play a critical role for global biodiversity conservation (they are home to three of the world's four species of great apes), they also provide vital regional and global ecological services as carbon sink and catchment basin.
Even though much of the forest areas currently remain intact, the regional forest ecosystems continue to be at risk from a complex set of important threats - such as unsustainable timer and mineral extraction, bush meat trade and weak governance - that call for concerted global action.
In this context, we want to cite a prime example of CBFP's collaboration efforts: "The Congo Basin Forests 2006" is the first comprehensive report on the state of the Congo basin forests, published in collaboration with COMIFAC.
The The State of Forest report on the Congo Basin is published periodically to present the forest ecosystems of Central Africa and their management environment.
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