Tropical forest / Congo Basin conservation

What this driver is

Tropical forest / Congo Basin conservation is one continuing land-use mechanism outside the Brazilian Legal Amazon PRODES meter: humid tropical forest loss and conservation policy in the Congo Basin and other extra-Amazon tropical forests, with FAO FRA global deforestation rates as the disclosed global envelope. It is a mechanism, not a tourism brochure, not a carbon-credit catalogue, and not a welfare score.

The driver is not amazon deforestation pressure, which owns INPE PRODES Legal Amazon. It is not biodiversity loss and not ecosystem restoration. Mixing Congo with Amazon PRODES would be the twin the roster forbids.

It applies to Congo Basin (DRC, Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, CAR) and other extra-Amazon tropical forests named by FAO FRA and COMIFAC/CAFI instruments, from FRA 1990–2025. It is not ukraine-war and not territorial-revisionism.

The legal neighbourhood is FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025 (https://doi.org/10.4060/cd6709en (opens in a new tab)), COMIFAC, and the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI). A later REDD+ payment is not a unique Factrail hectare.

Mechanism

The mechanism moves welfare through named channels.

First, conversion. FAO FRA 2025 records global deforestation at 10.9 million ha per year in 2015–2025, down from 13.6 million (2000–2015) and 17.6 million (1990–2000). Africa’s annual net forest loss was 2.96 million ha in 2015–2025, with Eastern/Southern and Western/Central Africa accounting for most of it; DRC’s net loss slowed by about 0.5 million ha per year versus 2000–2015 (https://www.fao.org/newsroom/detail/global-deforestation-slows--but-forests-remain-under-pressure--fao-report-shows/en (opens in a new tab)). Those Mha/year are FAO’s. This page does not invent a unique Factrail hectare or Contribution.size. Amazon Legal Amazon rates stay on amazon-deforestation.

Second, logging, mining, and agriculture in the Congo Basin. Industrial logging concessions, artisanal mining, and shifting cultivation are the named local channels. CAFI letters and COMIFAC texts are the policy instruments.

Third, peat and swamp forest. Cuvette Centrale peat carbon is a Congo-specific stock. FAOSTAT 2025 forest emissions/removals name DRC among the largest emitters from net forest conversion in 2021–2025 (160 MtCO2 in that FAOSTAT release). Quote FAOSTAT with the date; do not invent a unique GtCO2.

Fourth, conservation finance. CAFI, bilateral forest partnerships, and later tropical-forest facilities are money. Climate-finance availability is the LIVE finance companion.

Fifth, fire and degradation. FRA net loss is not a fire inventory. Wildfire risk remains the fire companion.

Timing is a FRA decade for the official rate and a concession year for a logging permit. A later FRA point, or a CAFI results letter, would be a new fact. It would not hang this driver on Amazon PRODES.

Evidence base

The best evidence is FAO FRA 2025 (Rome, 2025; DOI 10.4060/cd6709en) and the 21 October 2025 FAO newsroom summary. FRA-data.fao.org is the official database. FAOSTAT forest emissions/removals (21 October 2025) is the carbon companion table. Independent contemporaneous coverage of FRA 2025 is the newsroom release itself plus the open-knowledge report.

The meter is FAO’s global deforestation rate (Mha/year) scaled by the 1990–2000 figure of 17.6, so 1990–2000 is 1.0, 2000–2015 is 0.7727, 2015–2025 is 0.6193. Africa’s 2.96 million ha/year net loss in 2015–2025 is quoted as FAO regional context, not copied onto the meter as a unique Congo integer.

Evidence is strongest for FRA tables. It is weaker for any unique DRC logging-concession hectare invented here. It is weakest where a carbon-credit brochure is asked to rebate 10.9 million ha/year.

Effect on welfare indicators

This driver, when tropical extra-Amazon forest is actually cleared, is a land-use carbon and biodiversity channel.

• Global CO2 emissions per capita: direction higher residual carbon when net forest conversion runs. Horizon: the FRA period. Confidence: medium — FAOSTAT names DRC among large conversion emitters; the live CO2-per-capita series is fossil-heavy. No invented GtCO2.
• Population-weighted PM2.5 air pollution exposure (global): direction higher particulate in fire-and-clear years. Horizon: a dry season. Confidence: medium. Wildfire-risk remains the fire companion.

Missing coefficients stay missing.

The welfare sign of extra-Amazon tropical loss is negative on those series. A slower FAO rate than the 1990s is a lower intensity of the same driver, not a rebate of Congo conversion.

Interactions and contested points

Reinforcement is obvious when FRA Africa net loss and a DRC conversion year sit together. Offsetting is the claim that a CAFI payment rebates FRA 10.9 million ha/year.

It does not. Amazon Legal Amazon is amazon-deforestation. This node is extra-Amazon tropical / Congo Basin with FAO FRA as the envelope.

A second competing view is that FRA net loss undercounts degradation. Degradation is neighbouring. It is not a reason to invent a unique Factrail hectare.

Not established: a unique Congo hectare, a unique peat GtCO2, or that a facility pledge reversed FRA. A later FRA edition would update the meter. It would not mint a second tropical-forest driver.