Africa is home to one-third of the world’s tropical rainforests. Over 50 per cent of the continent’s surface is covered by savannah grasslands. Historically, Africa’s forests have played a vital role in acting as a 'carbon sink', removing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it as biomass.
During photosynthesis, trees, plants and shrubs store large amounts of carbon as they absorb it from the atmosphere and utilise it to grow new leaves, shoots and roots.
However, they release huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere due to deforestation, drought, anthropogenic activities like shifting cultivation, agricultural burning, fuelwood burning and other climate-related factors, such as wildfires, aggravating the rate of carbon emission.
It also leads to the decline of the forest's carbon sequestration potential.
The study published in Scientific Reports on November 28, 2025, titled Loss of tropical moist broadleaf forest has turned Africa’s forests from a carbon sink into a source revealed the critical transition from a carbon sink to a carbon source between 2010 and 2017.
The study revealed, "Between 2007 and 2010, the continent gained 439 ± 66 Tg yr⁻1 of aboveground biomass, but from 2010 to 2015 biomass declined by − 132 ± 20 Tg yr-1 and from 2015 to 2017 this decline continued with a loss of − 41 ± 6 Tg yr-1, primarily driven by deforestation in tropical moist broadleaf forests."
The study used new high-resolution satellite-derived biomass maps, validated with field plots and machine learning techniques. The researchers quantified the aboveground biomass stocks across African biomes over the last ten years.
In general, the study quoted previous research works revealing that the African forests contain large carbon stocks in the form of aboveground woody biomass, in the range from 85 to 129 Pg. African tropical forests have an average aboveground biomass density of over 396 Mg ha-1, but this can be as high as 429 Mg ha-1 in some areas of the Congo Basin.
However, the "African forests lost approximately 106bn kg of biomass per year, which is equivalent to the weight of about 106mn cars," the Guardian reported.
As a matter of concern, African forests, rich in biodiversity, aid the livelihood of more than 1 billion people and play an inevitable role in regulating the climate.
Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, in a chapter on 'Forest health and vitality', highlights that continuous monitoring of forest ecosystems is an expensive process, which makes it complicated for developing countries and economies in transition.
It also pointed out that the monitoring of forest pollution in some European countries led to the implementation of abatement policies and a decrease in the emissions of airborne pollutants.
Notably, significant measures are taken to restore 1 million hectares of land across 22 African countries by 2030, aiming to create a green corridor in an initiative called the Great Green Wall. The African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative targets to restore 100 million hectares of African landscapes by 2030.
Notably, traditional knowledge of local and indigenous communities for effective forest management is also helping big way.
With the African forests, once considered a 'friend' in combating climate change, likely turning into a 'foe', shared responsibility in protecting them to protect ourselves comes paramount.