During the Congo Basin Forum 2025, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and its partners convened a side event titled “From Data to Decision: Advancing Sustainable Peatland Management in the Congo Basin through Hydrological Modeling and Monitoring Tools.” The session brought together over 60 participants—both in-person and online—to spotlight the power of data and science in shaping sustainable futures for one of the world’s most critical carbon sinks.
Kribi, Cameroun, 20 juin 2025 - Un forum régional sur la conservation des forêts, le premier du genre, s'est achevé aujourd'hui à Kribi, au Cameroun, traçant une nouvelle voie pour la coopération Sud-Sud dans les régions forestières les plus critiques d'Afrique.
Kribi, Cameroon, 20 June 2025 — A first-of-its-kind regional forum on forest conservation wrapped up today in Kribi, Cameroon, charting a new course for South-South cooperation across Africa’s most critical forest regions.
UNEP’s Congo Basin Sustainable Landscapes Programme (CBSL) is leading the GEF-7 Congo Basin Impact Programme and the upcoming GEF-8 Congo Critical Forest Biomes Integrated Programme (CFB IP) in six central Africa countries.
Kribi, Cameroun, 17 juin 2025 - Aujourd'hui marque le lancement du Programme Intégré (PI) des Forêts du Bassin du Congo et du PI des Forêts Guinéennes, tous deux soutenus par le Fonds pour l'Environnement Mondial (GEF) et dirigés respectivement par le Programme des Nations Unies pour l'Environnement (PNUE) et Conservation International (CI).
Kribi, Cameroon, 17 June 2025 — Today marks the launch of the Congo Forest Integrated Programme (IP) and Guinean Forests IP, both supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and led respectively by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Conservation International (CI).
The Congo Basin spans six countries—Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of Congo— encompassing over 4 million square kilometres of interconnected rivers, lakes, savannas, peatlands and other wetlands, mangroves, and dense tropical rainforests. At the heart of this vast system is fresh water, the unifying element that weaves these ecosystems together.
Learn how water supports this rich and biodiverse ecosystem in our informational brief.
Water is more than just a resource — it is a fundamental force that shapes ecosystems and sustains life, connecting landscapes from ridge to reef. In the Congo Basin, water plays a central role in maintaining the health and function of the region’s extensive peatlands. The peatlands in this region are critical for local livelihoods as well as global climate regulation and biodiversity conservation. They hold enough carbon which, if released, would amount to between 2-3 years of current total global CO₂ emissions.
The GEF-funded Congo Basin IP, within UNEP’s Congo Basin Landscapes Initiative, supports the conservation and governance of vital landscapes in the Congo Basin Forest Biome. One of the Programme’s approaches to combating deforestation involves collaborating with local communities, national and regional government officials and international partners to develop comprehensive, trans-boundary land use management plans.