Central Africa’s forests are among the least developed in the tropics. Over two-thirds of Central Africa’s forests still qualify as low
access forest regions—contiguous forest areas at least 1,000 square
kilometers in size, unbroken by public roads.
About a third of forests remain within very large (over 10,000
square kilometer) low access forest regions, primarily in the interior
Congo Basin. Much of this is inhospitable swamp forest, and/or in
areas with very low population densities.
However, our analysis did not factor in logging roads, for lack
of data. Pilot work for Cameroon using satellite images suggests
that much of the forest mapped as low-access and falling within
concessions has, in fact, been opened up by logging roads. Up to
three-quarters of this low-access forest in Cameroon is at risk
from hunters, who travel up new logging roads to empty previously
inaccessible areas of their wildlife.
At most, around 40% of Central Africa’s forests remain within low-access forest regions which have yet to be allocated for logging.
Excepting the Democratic Republic of Congo, most low access forest regions in Central African countries are within active or allocated logging concessions.
Only 8% of Central Africa’s low-access forest regions are protected as parks and reserves. One percent or less of these forests are protected within the Central African Republic and Equatorial Guinea, two countries with the least amount of low access forest remaining in the region.
