The Congo rainforest, the tropical rainforest of the African Congo Basin, is second only to the tropical rainforest of theAmazon Basin in South America . It is known as the “second lung of the earth” and its land area of more than half of the tropical rainforest is more than 2.3 million square kilometers. 54% of them are covered by forests. The Congo Basin is located between the Guinean Plateau , the South African Plateau , the East African Plateau and the low Azand Plateau , in Cameroon , the Central African Republic , the Democratic Republic of the Congo , Equatorial Guinea , Gabon and the Republic of the Congo .
This is a tectonic basin with a thickly sedimentary rock that is largely undisturbed at the bottom, forming a flat and monotonous topography. Only some of the sporadic low cliffs caused by faults break this monotonous landscape to some extent.
For more than 50,000 years, the Congo Basin has been providing food, water and shelter to more than 75 million people. Nearly 150 distinct ethnic groups live together, including inhabitants of the Ba’Aka region, the most famous representatives of an old hunter-gatherer lifestyle whose way of life and well-being is closely linked to the forest. In these areas, whole crops are based on their relationship with the forest. Tens of millions of people depend on it for food, medicinal plants or energy supplies. Congo (Golden) is rich in 25 kinds of precious wood such as ebony , mahogany , ash wood , rosewood and yellow lacquer wood. However, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization survey shows that the area of this tropical rainforest is decreasing at a rate of 3,190 square kilometers per year. Unlike many countries, the destruction of Congolese forests is not caused by over-harvesting, but by war. The EU ‘s environmental and forest expert in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Filippo Salak, told Xinhua News Agency: “In this country, the ongoing war has caused millions of displaced people. They fled into the forest area and used the fire to burn the forest to open up the land. Planting crops, which puts great pressure on the forest ecology.” It is a tropical rainforest climate with high temperature and rain. The annual average temperature is 25-27 °C, and the annual precipitation is 1500-2000 mm. The tropical rain forest is widely distributed, and there are precious trees such as ebony , mahogany, ebony and rosewood. The soil is dominated by brick red soil and red soil
A major role in the fight against is climate change. Deforestation is one of the major causes of climate change. On the one hand, because fewer forests are less CO2 absorbed and trapped by these ecosystems, so more CO2 in the atmosphere. On the other hand, because of cutting trees, the forest industry releases CO2 stored by these trees. In the end, up to 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions are due to deforestation. It’s more than the entire transport sector.
