The dense tropical rainforest of the eastern Congo is home to the Critically Endangered Grauer’s Gorilla, whose population has sharply declined due to extreme habitat loss and poaching for bushmeat.

Rainforest Trust and our partner, Fauna & Flora International, seek to support local Komo people in establishing the Kanyama Community Forest protected area at the western edge of the Maiko National Park—one of the most biodiverse areas of Africa.

The proposed 122,776-acre Kanyama Community Forest will further fortify the 483-mile-long corridor that Rainforest Trust and partners have been focused on for the last decade. The corridor connects vital forest fragments to the large national parks for the long-term survival of the Critically Endangered Grauer’s Gorilla, Endangered Okapi and other vulnerable species in the region.

Save this landscape from accelerating deforestation

Tropical deforestation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) continues to accelerate year over year and its forest fires are on a similar scale to those in the Amazon. Nevertheless, DRC still holds the largest forest in Africa, 2.5 times the size of California. But 80% is unprotected, leaving it open to mining, charcoal production, subsistence agriculture, and both legal and illegal resource extraction.

Secure key habitat for imperiled species

Securing key habitat in this lowland forest landscape for the Grauer’s Gorilla will protect more than 11,000 diverse species (and counting) that call it home, including globally threatened mammals such as the endemic Okapi (EN) and the Eastern Chimpanzee (EN).

This landscape is one of the last strongholds for Endangered Okapi, whose numbers are declining due to habitat loss and hunting for the bushmeat trade, and the Eastern Chimpanzee (EN) whose overall population in the Congo has declined 22% since 1994.

Other species that will benefit from this protection include the Congo Peafowl (VU), Giant and White-bellied Pangolin (EN), Grey Parrot (EN) and African Forest Elephant (CR).

Reduce global climate change through conservation

The tropical forests of the DRC store an immense amount of carbon, averaging 55–110 metric tons of CO₂ equivalent per acre. Protecting the Kanyama Community Forest will permanently lock up at least 28.6 million metric tons of CO₂ equivalents, commensurate to the annual emissions of 6.1 million cars, to help stabilize the global climate.

Empower local communities to protect fragile landscape

Living in the fifth poorest county in the world, the Congolese people subsisting in and around the Kanyama Community Forest live on isolated forest fragments that are vulnerable to conversion and exploitation by profit-seekers having no relationship to the land.

These communities directly depend on the forest for food, clean water, fuel, medicine, shelter and their livelihoods. They will be granted formal ownership of the land and will have the exclusive right to manage and steward the land in a way that aligns with their ancestral traditions, and protects the forest and vulnerable species.