- Congo Basin
- Countries
- Landscapes
Congo Basin
The CARPE program is directly concerned with the sustainable management of the Congo Basin forest ecosystem.
The Congo Basin forest spans across much of Central Africa and is the second largest area of contiguous moist tropical forest left in the world. It covers an area of approximately 1.8 million square kilometers from the Atlantic Ocean's Gulf of Guinea to the mountains of the Albertine Rift. 80% of the forests range in altitude from 300 to 1,000 m and forms the catchment basin of the Congo River.
Representing approximately one fifth of the world's remaining closed canopy tropical forest; the Congo Basin forest is of local, regional, and global environmental significance. The forest serves as critical habitat for biodiversity conservation (home to three of the world's four species of great apes) and provides vital regional and global ecological services. The forest also represents a rich resource in terms of food, shelter, and livelihoods for the over 60 million inhabitants ofthe region. The sustainable management of these resources is seen as critical to the economic development of the region.
The Congo Basin forests, which play a major economic role and ecological role as a carbon sink and a catchment basin, are at risk from a complex set of threats. While much of the forest currently remains intact, many factors contribute to its continual loss. These factors include proximate threats from the persistent unsustainable extraction of timber and mineral resources, agricultural expansion, an active bushmeat trade, poor management, and increasing pressure due to population growth. In addition, the forests of the Congo Basin are vulnerable to more ultimate threats related to regional poverty, weak governance, and civil unrest.
Countries
CARPE was initiated as a regional program because the Congo Basin forest is not contained within a single country, but instead represents a contiguous area of tropical forest that acts as the catchment basin for the Congo River.
The forest spans Central Africa and working to promote its sustainable management involves engaging and supporting cooperation and collaboration between numerous countries.
CARPE is currently working within the following African countries; Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Sao Tome & Principe. The governments of these countries have established their willingness to create a meaningful regional forest dialogue by becoming members of the Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC).
CARPE's engagement in each of these countries differs according to their needs and CARPE priorities. CARPE's strategic objective addresses building natural resource management capacity at the local, national, and regional scale. In many of CARPE's partner countries the capacity to sustainably manage natural resources is being improved locally through CARPE's Landscape Programs. At the country scale, CARPE supports many programs to institutionalize natural resource monitoring and strengthen natural resource governance.
Landscapes
The majority of CARPE funds are allocated to support activities in designated landscapes. By implementing a landscape approach to natural resource management, CARPE works to assure that conservation activities are integrated into commercial forest exploitation activities, and address the unsustainable environmental practices of a myriad of local communities subsisting throughout the tropical forest landscapes.
CARPE currently works within 12 key biodiversity landscapes in seven countries. Several of CARPE's landscapes are transboundary and are recognized by international agreements promoting cooperation on environmental monitoring and law enforcement. These 12 landscapes form the pillar of CARPE's regional conservation strategy and cover an area of 680,300 km2.
CARPE landscapes were identified as appropriate conservation targets at a 2000 Conservation Priority-Setting Workshop for Central Africa. The workshop was organized by the World Wildlife Fund and brought together over 160 biologists and socio-economic experts to carry out a region-wide evaluation. The 12 landscapes were recognized as priority areas for conservation based on their relative taxonomic importance, their overall integrity, and the resilience of ecological processes represented. In accordance with principles of integrated conservation initiatives and broad-scale land management, each landscape is divided into different categories of management areas, including: protected areas, community-based natural resource management zones, and extractive zones. Within these zones, CARPE and its partners are working to implement sustainable natural resource management practices at the local scale.
Click on the map below to see additional information about individual landscapes
