2025 Congo Basin Assessment Report: Executive Summary
The 2025 Congo Basin Assessment Report charts a sustainable path forward by examining the Basin’s ecological history, evaluating current threats and opportunities, and outlining a framework for an alternative, nature-positive future. The Executive Summary, released at COP30, highlights urgent priorities for research and action, including the development of innovative approaches to environmental stewardship and sustainable resource management; strategic investments in local solutions and sustainable development; and strengthening resilience through the protection and restoration of natural capital. It also calls for new financing models and enhanced investments in science, governance, and regional resilience. Managed sustainably, the Congo Basin can drive nature-based development strategies that promote prosperity, stability, and climate resilience across Africa and the globe.
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Spanning 3.46 million square kilometers, the Congo Basin is the “Green Heart” of Africa. Its forests, savannas, swamps, montane ecosystems, and the world’s largest tropical peatland regulate rainfall, water cycles, and climate far beyond the region. Home to more than 10,000 species of plants, 400 mammals, 1,000 birds, and 700 species of fish, the Basin is one of Earth’s richest reservoirs of biodiversity and serves as the largest tropical carbon sink. Its peatlands alone store roughly 30 billion tonnes of carbon, crucial for global climate stability.
For over 650,000 years, humans have managed and shaped these landscapes. However, human activity since colonization has brought industrial logging, mining, oil exploration, and urban expansion. Unsustainable practices, ongoing conflicts, and intensifying climate risks are pushing ecosystems and livelihoods in the Basin towards critical thresholds. Despite decades of progress in forest management and conservation, sustainable development remains precarious. Experts warn that the future resilience of the Congo Basin depends on stronger governance, fair and predictable financing, community-driven stewardship, adequate, long-term investments in science, as well as the global effort to reduce carbon emissions and fight climate change.
The 2025 Congo Basin Assessment Report, Congo Basin Resilience and Sustainability: From the Past to the Future, brings together leading scientists and regional experts to synthesize what is known and map a sustainable path forward. Across 39 chapters organized into four sections, the Report traces the Basin’s ecological and human history, documents major environmental changes, and champions innovative sustainable development solutions. The Report describes the Basin as Africa's continental "green engine," vital for supporting livelihoods, biodiversity, and climate, and proposes pathways to safeguard natural capital while enhancing sustainable development.
While the full report is currently in press and is expected to be launched in early 2026, a comprehensive 48-page Executive Summary was released at COP30, presenting 16 key messages drawn from the Report, which offers the first-ever comprehensive overview of the Basin’s geological, ecological, and socio-economic dynamics. It warns that continued exploitation will further erode one of the world’s most significant tropical ecosystems, undermining regional and even continental stability and global climate goals. At the same time, the SPCB emphasizes the Basin’s potential to drive Africa’s nature-based development strategies, highlighting opportunities for sustainable management and optimization of the use of existing resources. It makes a call to action for dependable finance and equitable investment in sustainable development for the Congo Basin nations, identifying urgent knowledge gaps and research priorities to guide future policy, investment, and conservation efforts.