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A Sapele tree in the Republic of the Congo. The Congolian rainforest is the world's second-largest tropical forest, after the Amazon rainforest.It covers over 500,000,000 acres (2,000,000 km 2) across six countries and contains a quarter of the world's remaining tropical forest.
Tropical rainforests have been called the "jewels of the Earth" and the "world's largest pharmacy", because over one quarter of natural medicines have been discovered there. [2] Rainforests as well as endemic rainforest species are rapidly disappearing due to deforestation, the resulting habitat loss and pollution of the atmosphere. [3]
The division left tropical rainforests located in five major regions of the world: tropical America, Africa, Southeast Asia, Madagascar, and New Guinea, with smaller outliers in Australia. [13] However, the specifics of the origin of rainforests remain uncertain due to an incomplete fossil record.
It contains some of the largest tropical rainforests in the world and is an important source of water used in agriculture and energy generation. [1] The rainforest in the Congo Basin is the largest rainforest in Africa and second only to the Amazon rainforest in size, with 300 million hectares compared to the 800 million hectares in the Amazon. [2]
A world map illustrating the proportion of population aged 15–49 infected with HIV in 2019. HIV is endemic especially in Southern Africa. In 2011, sub-Saharan Africa was home to 69% of all people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide. [207] In response, a number of initiatives have been launched to educate the public on HIV/AIDS.
Among rainforest areas in other continents, most of the African rainforest is comparatively dry and receives between 1600 and 2000 mm of rainfall per year. Areas receiving more rain than this mainly are in coastal areas. The circulation of rainfall throughout the year remains less than in other rainforest regions in the world.
Satellites in September recorded 32,017 hotspots in the world's largest rainforest, a 61% rise from the same month in 2019. [140] In addition, October saw a huge surge in the number of hotspots in the forest (more than 17,000 fires are burning in the Amazon's rainforest) – with more than double the amount detected in the same month last year.
In West Africa, the forest zone refers to the southern part of the region once covered by tropical rainforest. Sometimes this region is referred to as Guinea to distinguish it from the grassland-covered Sudan, drier Sahel and per-arid Sahara. It is made-up of vegetation having mainly trees and consist of the following local biotic communities ...