The Earth’s “second lung” is in danger. The loss of forests in the Congo Basin would set back the fight against climate change by 20 years

This may sound too alarmist or far-fetched to be true, but science suggests that we are heading toward this alternative future because of our inaction and negligence on climate change.

We urgently need to train a generation of African scientists capable of studying, documenting, monitoring and explaining the complex ecological processes that have structured the vital ecosystem of the Congo Basin, while recognising the threats that modern human activities pose to its existence.

25 years ago, Brazil launched the large-scale Amazon Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment (LBA). Led by Brazilians and supported by the international community with $100 million, the program involved 1,700 participants, 990 of whom were Brazilian, and revolutionized our understanding of the Amazon rainforest and its role in the Earth system. One of its greatest legacies was the creation of a cadre of Brazilian scientists. As a result, Brazil is now widely recognized as the world’s leading nation in tropical forest monitoring and is at the forefront of rainforest research. From this initiative emerged the Amazon Scientific Panel, which includes 280 scientists who published the landmark report in 2021 Amazon review report in the run-up to COP 26 in Glasgow.

While the Amazon has attracted a great deal of attention from international donors, the Congo Basin, the world’s second largest rainforest, has been largely neglected. Only now is a cadre of indigenous scientists emerging, despite insufficient attention and funding from international donors.

The funds available for the protection and sustainable management of the Congo Basin, such as the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI) or the Congo Basin Forest Partnership, are insufficient to support the science that is critical to our understanding and ability to manage the ecosystem. There are very few long-term databases and research stations – and those that exist continually struggle to raise even relatively modest annual funding.

Thanks to AFRITRON, a network of permanent botanical exhibitions initiated by Professor Simon Lewis at the University of Leeds in the UK, and some important long-term sites such as Lopé, Epulu, Kibale and Budongo, where persistent researchers have worked for decades despite general disinterest, we have some evidence of the importance of the Congo Basin as a carbon sink. Although it occupies only a third of the area of ​​the Amazon, the Congo Basin contains approximately 40% of the carbon stock and its forests are proving more resilient to climate change than those of the southern Amazon. Today, despite their smaller size, they represent a much larger carbon sink.

Incomplete, fragmentary or preliminary studies suggest that the ecosystem services provided by the Congo Basin forests are critical to the stability of Africa and the world, including the cooling effect of transpiration from their leaves and the atmospheric rivers that flow into the Ethiopian highlands and the Sahel, where they generate the rainfall that fills the Blue Nile and irrigates Egypt.

There is no question: if we lose the forests of the Congo Basin, the global fight against climate change will be set back by 15 to 20 years. We would also lose the water, the lifeblood of Africa, pumped from its green heart – and the consequences will be reflected in hundreds of millions of climate refugees in the coming decades.

To put it simply, Africa cannot survive without the forests of the Congo Basin – or at least that is what the sparse evidence suggests.

In my new role as High-Level Special Envoy of the United Nations (UN) Congo Basin Science Initiative (SPCB), it is my duty to sound the alarm. We need to build more bridges between scientists, funders and policymakers. The SPCB and our sister initiative, the Congo Basin Science Initiative, need your support and investment. If our world is to remain ecologically stable, we must better understand and preserve this important ecosystem that is home to 80 million people and supports another 300 million Africans in surrounding rural areas.

The depth of understanding we need cannot be gained from researchers in developed countries studying satellite images from afar. We need scientists from the Congo Basin, on the ground, in the forests, learning from local people and unraveling the complex interactions between plants, animals, people, climate, hydrology and geology.

We are inspired by the Amazon Science Panel, want to learn from it and build strong links with it. By the time the SCPB lands at COP30, the climate conference on the rainforest to be held in Belem in 2025, our first assessment report will be ready.

With the world’s lungs facing an existential threat, we must mobilize to bring about lasting change.

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