The Future of Biodiversity in the Congo Basin

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Abstract The biodiversity of the Congo Basin is currently highly threatened. Climate change is driving fundamental functional change in forest and aquatic ecosystems. Forest loss, driven by fire, agricultural expansion, logging, and fuelwood collection, drives further climate change and directly threatens forest species. In addition, overconsumption by human populations is challenging fish, bird, and mammal survival, and pollution from cities, industries, and agriculture particularly affects insects and aquatic biodiversity. But there are solutions to counter this bleak outlook. Sustainable use of renewable natural resources is possible alongside economic growth and biodiversity preservation, as the implementation of sustainable logging policies has shown. Sustainable subsistence hunting is possible for engaged communities, willing to monitor and regulate their hunting and enabled to adapt traditional management systems to present-day contexts. Governments are supported by their own laws and international conventions to enact strong regulation of pollutants from the mining sector, urban waste, and infrastructural development, if they have the courage, transparency, and budgets to do that. The most difficult challenge will be the restructuring of economies to move away from raw natural resource exports toward manufacturing and services that will allow wealth to alleviate pressure on biodiversity, rather than increase it.

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