The Democratic Republic of the Congo lost a record 590,000 hectares of primary forest in 2024.4 In 2025 total loss dipped 5%, but loss not caused by fire reached the highest level ever recorded.2 The Congo Basin is the world's second-largest tropical rainforest,1 and the pressure on it is growing.
Key points
- The DRC holds about 60% of the Congo Basin rainforest, shared by six countries4
- Small-scale shifting cultivation caused 86% of the DRC's primary forest loss from 2002 to 20252
- The basin's peatlands hold about 29 billion tonnes of carbon, and only 8% of it is in protected areas6
- Gabon and the Republic of the Congo show that high forest cover and low loss can go together2
The numbers: three years of rising loss
Global Forest Watch data show the DRC's primary forest loss climbing from 510,000 hectares in 2022 to 530,000 in 2023 and a record 590,000 in 2024.4 In 2025 the DRC had the third-largest tropical primary forest loss in the world.2
The DRC's total fell 5% in 2025. That sounds like good news, but the part of the loss that is not caused by fire was the highest on record. It is a sign that the underlying pressures are growing.2
Not every dataset agrees. In its own report to FAO, the DRC said its net loss of primary forest more than halved, from 565,000 hectares a year in 2000-2015 to 204,000 hectares a year in 2015-2025.3 Satellite monitoring and national reporting use different methods and definitions, so their numbers should not be mixed.
What is clearing the forest?
Unlike the Amazon or Indonesia, the Congo Basin is not mainly cleared for cattle or plantations. The main driver is the need for land to grow food. Across the basin, 84% of the forest area disturbed between 2000 and 2014 was cleared by small-scale farming without machines.5 Families cut and burn a patch, farm it for a few seasons and move on. As the fields multiply, they reach deeper into old forest.
Other pressures add to this. Selective logging was the second-largest cause of disturbance, about 10% of the disturbed area across the basin and more than 60% in Gabon.5 Roads open up remote areas.1 In eastern DRC, armed conflict has pushed communities into new forest, and mining clears forest directly.2 The basin's population is expected to grow fivefold by 2100, so the pressure will not ease by itself.5
For how this compares with other regions, see the causes of deforestation.
Why it matters: peat, carbon and people
The WRI describes the Congo Basin as the world's largest remaining tropical forest carbon sink.2 Beneath its swamp forests lies the most extensive peatland complex in the tropics. A 2022 field study put it at 167,600 km², holding 29.0 billion tonnes of carbon, about 28% of the world's tropical peat carbon.6 Drained peat dries out and decays, and carbon stored for thousands of years escapes into the air.
The forest is also home to people. Roughly 100 million rely on it for food, medicine, fuelwood and cultural identity.2 Read more about the effects of deforestation.
What is being done
In March 2018 the DRC, the Republic of the Congo and Indonesia signed the Brazzaville Declaration to improve conservation of the Cuvette Centrale peatlands.7 In January 2025 the DRC adopted a decree creating the Kivu-Kinshasa Green Corridor, a reserve of more than 54,000 km². Greenpeace Africa welcomed it cautiously but warned that affected communities had not been consulted and that the zone overlaps community, mining and agricultural concessions.8
Lasting progress means alternatives for farming families: more food from land already cleared, and cooking energy that does not come from the forest. For the wider toolkit, see solutions to deforestation, and compare the Amazon's record low in 2026. Brazil shows that political choices can bring clearing down. The Congo Basin shows how much harder that is when the driver is hunger rather than profit.
Our Congo Basin guide has the full picture. Watch the film to see what is at stake, then choose how the story ends.
Questions people ask
Is the Congo rainforest being deforested?
What causes deforestation in the Congo Basin?
Which country has the most forest loss in the Congo Basin?
Is the Congo Basin a carbon sink?
Yes. WRI calls it the world's largest remaining tropical forest carbon sink, and warns that continued loss of primary forest, including ancient peatlands, could weaken that role.2
Sources
- World Bank (2025). Why the Congo Basin Forests can't be ignored: a global lifeline at crossroads. Accessed 22 October 2026.
- World Resources Institute (2026). Tropical Rainforest Loss Slowed in 2025, but Fire is a Growing Threat to Forests Worldwide (Global Forest Review). Accessed 22 October 2026.
- FAO (2025). Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025. Accessed 22 October 2026.
- Mongabay (2025). DRC hit by record deforestation in 2024, satellite data show. Accessed 22 October 2026.
- Tyukavina, A. et al. (2018). Congo Basin forest loss dominated by increasing smallholder clearing. Science Advances 4. Accessed 22 October 2026.
- Crezee, B. et al. (2022). Mapping peat thickness and carbon stocks of the central Congo Basin using field data. Nature Geoscience 15. Accessed 22 October 2026.
- UNEP (2018). Historic agreement signed to protect the world's largest tropical peatland. Accessed 22 October 2026.
- Greenpeace Africa (2025). DRC Green Corridor Project: Greenpeace Africa cautiously welcomes "World's Largest Forest Reserve", urges inclusive approach. Accessed 22 October 2026.