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Figure 14. Location of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Sub-Saharan Africa
With more than 150 million hectares of forest, the DRC has the sixth largest forest area in the
world (FAO, 2011 b; World Resources Institute and Ministère de l’Environnement Conservation
de la Nature et Tourisme de la République Démocratique du Congo, 2010; FAO, 2010). For
several reasons, including the collapse of the DRC’s timber industry during the civil war (Draulans
and Van Krunkelsven, 2011) and poorly developed and war-damaged infrastructure (Foster and
Benitez, 2010), the DRC’s annual deforestation rate is currently relatively low (an estimated 0.2%
of forest was lost per year between 2000 and 2010, FAO, 2011a). However, despite the relatively
low deforestation rate, the absolute area of forest lost each year is large at an estimated 311 000
hectares, the seventh highest annual forest area loss globally (FAO, 2011a).
Due to its species richness and high level of endemism, the DRC is considered one of the world’s
seventeen megadiverse countries (Mittermeier
et al.
, 1999). The mountain forests in the country’s
east are part of the Albertine Rift Valley that belongs to the Eastern Afromontane Biodiversity
Hotspot, which is famed for harbouring the largest numbers of endemic bird species, mammal
species and amphibian species across the African continent (Conservation International, 2011).
More than 10 000 vascular plant species, 1000 birds, 420 mammals, 350 reptiles and 160
amphibians have to date been identified to occur in the DRC (Tableau 11). Among the iconic
mammal species are okapi and white rhinoceros, the Endangered bonobo and common
chimpanzee and the two Endangered subspecies of the eastern gorilla (mountain gorilla and
eastern lowland gorilla). The okapi, bonobo and eastern lowland gorilla are also endemic to the
DRC. Despite the large number of species known to occur in the country, taxonomic inventories
are still far from complete (Ministère de l’Environnement Conservation de la Nature et Tourisme,
2009), especially for invertebrates.