The World’s Second-Largest Rainforest Is Losing the Carbon It’s Held for a Thousand Years
The Congo Basin is the second-largest rainforest on Earth, and like most tropical forests, it’s getting chewed up by humans. That’s a problem for the climate, and not just because trees are a natural sponge helping to mop up humanity’s ever-rising carbon emissions. New research suggests that as trees are replaced with fields for agriculture, carbon that’s been locked up in the Congo’s soils for hundreds to thousands of years is starting to seep out. Soils hold a tremendous amount of carbon—more than the atmosphere and living vegetation combined.