Central Africa contains the world's second-largest area of contiguous tropical forest - smaller only than the Amazon forest and larger than the forests of South-East Asia. 

The dense rainforest covers some 1.6 million square kilometres. Since the 2002 Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, intergovernmental organisations, NGOs, private companies and scientific institutes active in the region have been cooperating with representatives of governments and local institutions in the Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP).

Their aim is to promote the conservation and sustainable use of this sensitive ecosystem. This article explains what a policy network of this sort can achieve and where its limits lie.

Dr. Hans Schipulle
From 2007 to 2010 Coordinator of the Congo Basin Forest Partnership on behalf of BMZ
Bonn, Germany
hans.schipulle@gmx.de