The vanishing rainforest of the Congo basin

The forests of the Congo basin in Africa are regarded as the world's second most important rainforest ecosystem after the Amazon Photograph: Greenpeace/PR

Sodefor log park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Congo basin forest is home to around 50 million people in six countries including Cameroon, Central Africa Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Congo-Brazzaville Photograph: Greenpeace/PR

Lope Reserve, Gabon. The Congo basin forest is twice the size of France and exceeded in size only by the Amazon. It is estimated that logging - much of it illegal - destroys an area the size of 25,000 football pitches every week Photograph: Saurabh Das/AP

Gabon: A large swath of forest cleared by loggers. The UN estimates that at present rates two-thirds of the forest will have vanished by the year 2040 Photograph: Michael Nichols/Getty

The Congo basin is boasts a wealth of biodiversity, including over 10,000 species of plants, 1,000 species of birds, and 400 species of mammals Photograph: Schalk van Zuydam/AP

Democratic Republic of Congo: A log barge travels down the Lukenie River to Kinshasa. The DRC's forests are critical for its inhabitants, who depend upon the rainforests to provide essential food, medicine, and other non-timber products, along with energy and building materials Photograph: Greenpeace

During the civil war in the DRC, illegal logging boomed because of a lack of monitoring Photograph: Greenpeace/PR

Virunga national park, Congo. The funding from Britain and Norway is intended to provide African governments and people living in the rainforest with a viable alternative to logging, mining, and chopping down trees for firewood and subsistence farming Photograph: Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters

Logging in the Congo basin has prompted protests. In July 2007 Greenpeace activists chained themselves to cranes in La Rochelle, France, to stop a ship carrying tropical wood from unloading its cargo Photograph: Xavier Leoty/AFP

An aerial view of forests just south of the Salonga National Park in the DRC. Forests absorb huge quantities of CO2 which is released when they are cut down Photograph: Greenpeace/PR