The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) holds more than 200 million acres of primary forest—the largest amount in an African country and more than twice the size of Montana. The dense forests store vast amounts of ancient carbon, and the country contains the world’s largest tropical peatland. The richest biodiversity in Africa is found here, along the Albertine Rift, but this astoundingly abundant ecosystem is threatened by unregulated hunting for bushmeat, slash-and-burn agriculture, and illegal artisanal mining that are running rampant over 80% of the eastern Congo Basin.

With funding from our donors, Rainforest Trust began working in the DRC in 2014. We have protected 6.8 million acres of rainforest to date, with an additional 2.5 million acres in the process of being protected. We focused first on the Oku forest, where an estimated 30% of the world’s Critically Endangered Grauer’s Gorilla population lives. This subspecies of the Eastern Gorilla is found nowhere else but the DRC, where its population has declined by over 75% in recent decades due to poaching and deforestation, with an estimated less than 6,800 individuals surviving today. Targeted conservation action is the only hope for the survival of this magnificent species.

The below map shows Rainforest Trust protected and in-progress projects in the DRC.

These forests are home to diverse flora and fauna, encompassing 11,000 species, including several globally threatened and endemic mammals such as the Grauer’s Gorilla, Eastern Chimpanzee, Okapi and Grey Parrot.

In Oku, we are supporting the creation of the Oku Community Reserve, which is still ongoing, and the creation of three Community Forests (CFCLs) that establish local communities as the legal stewards of the forests. This designation is an efficient tool for blocking land-grabbing and safeguarding forests, and we have gone on to create many more CFCLs in the DRC. To ensure their success, we work with our partners to enable communities to patrol and manage their lands. The CFCLs are essential to building a vast north-to-south conservation corridor.

Continued rainforest protection in the DRC is essential to the global campaign to slow climate change. Thanks to the support of our donors, we have locked up 1.23 billion metric tons (mT) of carbon, the equivalent of 1.36 trillion pounds of coal burned. Community Forests are providing protection for critically endangered gorillas and countless other species, including endangered chimpanzees, pangolins and parrots.