​This briefing illustrates with maps the protection status, biodiversity value and potential pressures on the peat swamp forest of the Central Congo Basin Peatlands. 

CongoPeat is a 5-year project led by Professor Simon Lewis of the University of Leeds, funded by the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). It builds on the recently published first-ever map of a vast peatland in the central Congo Basin (Dargie et al., 2017). Covering 145,500 square kilometres – an area larger than England – it is now recognised as the world’s most extensive tropical peatland.

Given the carbon stored in the peatlands, protecting them has become a global priority. Peat is a type of wetland soil made of semi-decomposed plant matter and so is rich in carbon. We estimate that about 30bn tonnes of carbon is stored in the peatland we found – an amount equivalent to three years of global fossil-fuel emissions.

Policy-making in the region is fluid and fast moving. Following our discovery, the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) signed the Brazzaville Declaration – an historic agreement to protect and preserve the rich ecosystem.