Africa

Africa contains approximately 15% of the world's rainforest cover and Central Africa has the world's second largest area of rainforest after South America's Amazon Basin [1]. The African rainforest is broadly divided into four regions - the Guinean Forest of West Africa; the Congo Basin Forest of Central Africa; the Highland Rainforest of East Africa and Madagascar.

The Democratic Republic of Congo alone has 463,000 square miles (1.2 million square kilometres) of tropical forest, an area three times the size of California. Of Central Africa's remaining undisturbed forest, around 40% now falls within commercial logging concessions granted by governments to companies and individuals [1]. The population of tropical Africa is predicted to grow by 150% between 1990-2025 and tropical Africa is predicted to lose 32% of its forest during the same period [2]. Three of the countries that The Prince's Rainforests Project have been working with are the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), Gabon and Liberia

(All figures for graphs taken from the World Bank, World Development Indicators (WDI) Database for 2005. The WDI forest cover percentage comes from The Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005)

Each of the four regions have a different biodiversity profile. The Central African rainforest is a major biodiversity hotspot with species such as gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos, elephants, forest buffalo, okapi and giant forest hogs, as well as over 8,000 species of plant [2]. The lowland forests of West Africa are home to more than a quarter of Africa's mammals, including more than 20 species of primate. The Guinean Forest is home to five Endemic Bird Areas. Finally, Madagascar has been classified as one of the world's top three biodiversity "hotspots"a and is home to some of the world's most unique flora and fauna. Almost all of Madagascar's reptile and amphibian species, half of its birds, and all of its lemurs are endemic to the island; meaning they can be found nowhere else on earth.

> Read more about biodiversity in the African rainforests here

Africa was the birthplace of humankind between 8 million and 5 million years ago. Today, the vast majority of its inhabitants are of indigenous origin. The rainforests are inhabited by pygmies - groups of native hunter-gatherers that have been there since the Stone Ages. Divided into tribal gropus, they remain dependent on the rainforest eco-system for their resources. In total, there are some 200,000 - 250,000 native rainforest inhabitants, all with separate languages, religions and customs, and all under threat from deforestation.

> Read more about people in the African rainforests here

In Africa the main causes of deforestation are shifting cultivation, woodfuel harvesting, commercial logging and mining. Following the end of recent conflicts in some African rainforest nations, activities such as commercial logging and mining have resumed and with them increased the recent rate of deforestation.

> Read more about the drivers of deforestation in African rainforests here