Africa is the world’s third largest continent for global forest area, most of which is concentrated in central and southern countries characterised by a tropical climate like Zambia, Angola, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The latter has the world’s second-largest rainforest: boasting an area five times the size of France and with nearly 152 million hectares of forests, the Congo Basin has been renamed the ‘lungs of the planet’.
Indeed, forests play a crucial role in maintaining a healthy and prosperous environment. They act as watersheds, defend the land against soil erosion, regulate local weather conditions, and trap greenhouse gases – a key element in the race against global warming.
Net forest loss continues to increase in Africa, with eight million hectares of forest lost each year.
Besides their importance for climate regulation, these forests are habitats for many rare and endangered species, and they provide very important water services to millions of people downstream.
Nearly 8 million hectares of African forests are being cut down each year, at almost double the speed of the world’s deforestation average.
Ivory Coast, Guinea and Ghana as deforestation hotspots in Africa. Between 2000 and 2023, the three West African countries lost 81%, 77% and 70% of their tropical rainforests, respectively.
Mountain forests disappearing at an alarming rate.
Besides their importance for climate regulation, these forests are habitats for many rare and endangered species, and they provide very important water services to millions of people downstream.
Fires and agriculture are causing mountain forests to disappear at an increasing rate. At least 274 million hectares, or 25 percent of the total of these ecosystems, disappeared between 2000 and 2023. The situation in Africa is of particular concern, given the climatic role played by its mountain forests.
These ecosystems are biodiversity hotspots and home to a large number of endemic plant and animal species, i.e. species that do not exist anywhere else on earth.
Corrupted governments regularly issues illegal industrial logging concessions to companies and corporations, violating forest conservation policies and accelerating the rate of deforestation in the country.
Deforestation in Africa has devastating impacts on the continent’s climate, ecosystems, and biodiversity.
But the climate is not the only factor affected by deforestation. Biodiversity is also highly compromised by this practice and animals are some of the biggest victims, as they suffer habitat loss and lack of food.
The world’s largest forest carbon sink loses millions hectares of forest every year and at the current rate, experts fear that soon there will not be any primary forest left.
Africa’s forests are some of the natural wonders of the world.
Agricultural productivity in the tropics is at risk from a deforestation-induced increase in mean temperatures and from a decline in mean rainfall or rainfall frequency.
The next major wave of deforestation is already here and it is happening in Africa.
This accelerating destruction of the rainforests (that form a precious cooling band around the Earth’s equator) is one of the main causes of climate change, making it critical to urgently address the problem of deforestation in Africa.
Forests continue to disappear and at an alarming rate. We must do more, and with a greater sense of urgency.
Do you consider the destruction of African forests a dangerous problem that needs to be addressed? What do you think needs to be done already today to solve the problem?