Save Congo Rainforest
Welcome to the carrd for the #SaveCongoRainforest campaign!
The Congo Rainforest is the second-largest rainforest on planet earth - and it is under threat. Our campaign, started by Vanessa Nakate (from Uganda) and Remy Zahiga (from the DRC), now has members from across the globe.
The Congo Rainforest is a Climate Justice Issue
The entire primary rainforest could be gone by as early as 2100. The forest shrinks by, on average, 40,000 square kilometers every year - around 0.6% of the remaining forest cover on earth.
Only 11% of the land of the Congo Rainforest is legally protected from logging. The rights of the indigenous peoples there - the Pygmy - have never been formally recognised. Illegal logging, often carried out by exploitative, foreign multinationals operating covertly, threatens the indigenous population immensely, and also means that the legal protection given to this land does not protect it in reality.
75 million people rely on the rainforest for their lives, and their voice is barely heard.
The Congo Rainforest is essential to the environment
What remains of the Congo Rainforest is rapidly losing its ability to act as a carbon sink. Decades worth of research suggests that the rainforest will absorb 14% less Carbon Dioxide than it did 15 years ago. This is a result of increased temperatures and altered rainfall patterns - a product of anthropomorphic climate change.
By the middle of this century, the Congo Rainforest could release more carbon dioxide than it absorbs.
The peat bogs in the rainforest are part of what enables it to sequester so much carbon dioxide, and what makes it so unique in the landscape of our global ecology - and they are threatened by foreign interests keen to dig them up to extract the fossil fuels beneath them.
The Congo Rainforest is ecologically important
The Congo Rainforest is a bastion of biodiversity, made up of 600 tree species and 10,000 animal species. The illegal wildlife trade threatens the endangered species that live there. This, coupled with the destruction of the rare plants and trees that occurs daily, prompted Remy Zahiga to start the #SaveCongoForest_Flora_Fauna. The destruction is a huge risk to the local people, as well as to the rare species that call the rainforest home. These animals include: okapi; forest elephants; hippos; lions; chimpanzees; and leopards. Large herbivores, elephants, and gorillas, keep the density of small trees very low, which reduces competition for larger trees, enabling them to grow very tall. In areas where these animals have been aggressively hunted and poached, forests tend to be shorter and denser, showing how human activity is changing the forest in every conceivable way.
This is why it is so important to factor nature into the conversation - so many people rely on the forest remaining biodiverse. This is an ecological crisis as well as a climate crisis, something that people who rely on the Congo Rainforest have been trying to tell the rest of the world for a very long time.
The plight of the Congo basin is intertwined with the complexities of the climate and ecological crisis. If we are serious about saving the planet, then we must be serious about saving the rainforest, and if we are serious about climate justice then we must remember that #AfricaMatters
Want to get involved?
All you need to do is hold a sign saying "Save Congo Rainforest"!
If you have social media, then take a picture and post it using the #SaveCongoRainforest and #SaveCongoForest_Flora_Fauna and tag Vanessa and Remy, as well as the SCR account (@savecongoforest on twitter and @savecongorainforest on instagram).
You can digital strike for the Congo Rainforest or (if it is safe where you are), take it to the streets. You can protest daily, weekly, or just whenever you are able - there's no pressure!
If you would like to be more involved with the organisation of the campaign, just send the SCR account a DM and we'll get back to you ASAP! {}