The University of Maryland estimates that primary forest loss in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is still very substantial.
According to recent data, the amount of tree cover in Africa decreased significantly last year, by almost 3.6 million hectares (14,000 square miles).
Around 800,000 hectares (3,000 square miles) of this area, or primary or old-growth tropical forests, were made of this, according to the University of Maryland study, which is available on the World Resource Institute’s (WRI) Global Forest Watch platform.
The majority of the drop was accounted for by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where primary forest loss is still stubbornly high. Agribusiness development into primary forest areas in response to increased food demand is predicted to have cost the nation more than half a million hectares in 2022.
Tropical primary forest decreases have dramatically increased in Ghana in recent years, largely within protected areas, while losses in nations like Angola and Cameroon have sped up.
Ghana received the lowest score of any tropical nation in 2022—71%—and had the largest percentage of losses.
Despite the loss of primary forests being relatively minimal in size (only 18,000 hectares in 2022), the analysis concludes that Ghana has very little primary forest left.
Gold mining, the cutting of timber, fires, and the manufacturing of cocoa are some of the activities that have resulted in losses.
The Republic of Congo and Gabon, meanwhile, continue to experience minimal losses to primary forests overall.
By preventing emissions from land use and land-use change, sustaining a stable carbon reservoir, and serving as a significant carbon sink, research has demonstrated that conserving primary forests can help reduce climate change.
A commitment to stop and reverse forest loss by the end of the decade was made when representatives of 145 nations signed the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use at the UN climate summit (COP26) in 2021.
A year after the announcement, “instead of consistent declines in primary forest loss to meet that goal, the trend is moving in the wrong direction,” the WRI reported.
