Congo River & Rainforests

Deforestation

Desertification

Climate change

Movie on the Congo River Basin World Wildlife Foundation Movie

Congo River Basin

One of the thickest rainforests in the world.

Hot and humid climate.

Average rainfall yearly is about 80”

Deforestation

From 1990 to 2000 about 35,361 square mile of rain forests have been cut down for lumber, farming, and grazing land.

The land area is about equal to the size of Indiana.

Poaching Gorillas, Monkeys, and other small mammals

are being killed and sold for meat and hides. It is estimated that there is less than 20,000 bonobos left in the Congo river basin.

Congo river The Congo river

is the 5th longest river in the world at 2900 miles long.

It drains an area of about 1,400,000 square miles.

How this affects us It affects us because

we import logging from Congo.

Exporting Rare wood is one of their major economic resources.

Bibliography staff, staff. "Number." Time 24-1-2008 07-03-2008

<http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1706758,00.html>.

http://www.sfenvironment.org/graphics/library/tidecon2.jpg

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/bigphotos/images/070816-gorillas-congo_big.jpg&imgrefurl=http://africascience.blogspot.com/2007/08/congo-gorilla-killings-fueled-by.html&h=365&w=461&sz=50&hl=en&start=20&tbnid=v5qFXXEkJp1sfM:&tbnh=101&tbnw=128&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcongo%2B%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den

http://www.biology-blog.com/images/blogs/12-2006/logging-congo-forest-5621.jpg