Routing Rainforests Rogues!

The Congo Basin makes up one of the most important wilderness areas left on Earth. At 500 million acres, it is larger than the state of Alaska and stands as the world's second-largest tropical forest.

Africa's forested area shrank to 637 million hectares in 2020. The continent lost around 39 million hectares of forest area. According to the U.N. FAO, 22.7% or about 674,419,000 ha of Africa is forested, according to FAO

Logging interests cut down rain forest trees for timber used in flooring, furniture, and other items. Power plants and other industries cut and burn trees to generate electricity. The paper industry turns huge tracts of rain forest trees into pulp. The cattle industry uses slash-and-burn techniques to clear ranch land. The vast majority of Africa's rainforests areas have already been destroyed for logging, agriculture and for plantations.

The biggest drivers of deforestation in the Congo rainforests over the past 30 years have been small-scale subsistence agriculture, clearing for charcoal and fuelwood, urban expansion, and mining. Industrial logging has been the largest driver of forest degradation.

Uncontrolled burning to clear farmland, to drive animals for hunting, to collect honey and to reduce tsetse flies also threatens lowland coastal forests and thicket patches, often replacing rare, endemic coastal forest species with more common wide-ranging, fire-adapted species.

Nigeria is the largest timber producer in Africa. South Africa produced an estimated 1,887,000 cubic meters of industrial round wood in 2020, making it Africa's second largest timber produce, according to Globalwood

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO], nearly 4 million hectares of African forests are being cut down each year, at almost double the speed of the world's deforestation average.

Recent data by Chatham House tell us that tropical Africa has lost about 22 per cent of its forested area since 1900, which is comparable to the losses in the Amazon. The Democratic Republic of the Congo concentrated the largest forest area in Africa, around 126 million hectares.

In 2010, Nigeria had 10.9 Mha of natural forest, extending over 12% of its land area. In 2022, it lost 105 kha of natural forest, equivalent to 69.7 Mt of CO? emissions.

Ghana, the West African country lost 18,000 ha [44,500 acres] of primary forest?in 2022 and the country is losing its rainforests faster than any other country in the world in a report by World Economic Forum.

In 2022, Brazil recorded the largest area of primary tropical forest loss worldwide, at more than 1.7 million hectares. Primary forest loss in Brazil was considerably higher than in any other country that year, accounting for over 40 percent of global primary forest loss.

Today, only 4 billion hectares are left. The world has lost one-third of its forest – an area twice the size of the United States. Only 10% of this was lost in the first half of this period, until 5,000 years ago.

Factors affecting the exploitation of forest resources as identified by the rural households were deforestation, bush burning, urbanization, land degradation/erosion, losses due to bad market, high transportation cost, community laws, land ownership, among others.

With acknowledgments and credits..