Rainforests have the potential to mitigate ongoing global crises
Climate change and biodiversity loss are the defining challenges of our generation.
Rainforests stock and absorb carbon and are home to more than 50% of terrestrial biodiversity, while only covering 6% of the Earth’s surface. No other ecosystem or economic sector has the same capacity to revert the unfolding climate and biodiversity crisis.
Forests are key for the survival of people living in and around them.
The Central African forest is unique in its size and features
Central Africa is one of the few remaining regions of the world that absorb more carbon than they emit.
As the world’s second largest forest basin, it absorbs 1.1 billion tons of CO2 emissions out of the atmosphere or 4% of the world’s emissions every year.
It is home to more than 10,000 plant and animal species, many endemic.
This forest is the source of food, energy, shelter and spirituality for over 40 million people living in and around it, in countries with some of the lowest Human Development indices and conflict areas and with the highest number of people in urgent need of food security assistance in the world.
Central African forests are under threat
The Central African forest has been mostly spared from loss so far, but is under increasing pressure. While trends and causes vary widely with national contexts (the subject of an ongoing CAFI-funded study), the Central African region has totaled a loss of over 6 million hectares of humid primary forest since 2001. That's about 6 million rugby fields, and the trend is largely accelerating.
As a consequence of this loss and of national development contexts, the land-use and forestry sector is the main contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the region.