The Congo Basin Peatlands (Cuvette Centrale)

Location, size, and carbon stock

• The Cuvette Centrale is the world’s largest tropical peatland complex. It sits in the central Congo Basin, across the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
• It covers roughly 145,500 square kilometres, an area larger than England.
• The peat stores about 30 billion tonnes of carbon. That equals roughly three years of the world’s fossil-fuel emissions.

Discovery, and the six Congo Basin countries

• Researchers mapped its full extent only in 2017, after a UK-Congolese team spent years exploring these remote swamp forests.
• The wider Congo Basin spans six countries: Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon.

Global stakes and real threats

• Peat stores carbon built up over thousands of years. Draining or disturbing it would release that carbon into the air. This risks the global climate, not just the local one.
• Logging, mining, and oil and gas work are the main dangers.
• Much of the region is covered by proposed or existing concessions. Road expansion also threatens to open remote areas.

Legal protection, and deforestation so far

• The Republic of Congo’s Environment Law of 2023 prohibits industrial forestry within its peatlands.
• Large areas of the Cuvette Centrale are also designated as Ramsar wetland sites.
• Deforestation inside the peatlands remains exceptionally low today. Satellites have recorded broader deforestation elsewhere in the region.

Why “bomb”, and a global comparison

• Researchers call it a “carbon bomb” because it releases carbon differently from a burning forest. Undisturbed peat can sit safely for thousands of years. Drainage or drying can trigger release in just years or decades.
• The Amazon gets far more attention as a carbon sink. But the Cuvette Centrale stores a comparable amount of carbon in a much smaller area.

52 new oil blocks (2025)

• On 2 May 2025, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Council of Ministers approved 52 new oil exploration blocks in the Cuvette Centrale peatlands.
• 72% of the new Kivu-Kinshasa Green Corridor, a flagship community conservation initiative, now falls inside these blocks.
• The government has not released public maps of the blocks’ exact boundaries. Protected areas could fall inside them without anyone knowing.
• Source: Rainforest Foundation UK.