In January, Cameroon, the second largest country in the Congo-basin, submitted its first forest baseline, called a Forest Reference Level (FRL) to UNFCCC against which the country can measure their conservation efforts.

Cameroon’s rainforests form a cornerstone of the Congo Basin, functioning as a major biodiversity stronghold and an essential global carbon sink that helps regulate regional climate patterns. Often described as the “lungs of Africa,” these forests are indispensable to the health and survival of the Basin’s entire ecosystem. The Congo Basin rainforest is a vital global asset, acting as the world’s largest net carbon sink and playing a crucial role in regulating Earth’s climate. Although the Amazon receives more attention, the Congo Basin now absorbs more carbon dioxide each year than the Amazon and all of Asia’s tropical forests combined.

Cameroon holds a significant portion of the basin’s biodiversity, including thousands of plant species, over 900 bird species, and 300 mammal species, such as endangered cross-river gorillas, chimpanzees, and forest elephants.

These forests directly support an estimated 8 million rural people by maintaining ecosystem services, including regulating surface water flows and sustaining water supplies for agriculture, hydropower, and municipal use.

CfRN provided significant help to the country to ready them for doing this. CfRN’s French-speaking technical team provided capacity-building to support the preparation of the FRL.

CfRN worked with technical staff from the Ministry of Environment, Nature Protection and Sustainable Development (MINEPDED) and the National Observatory on Climate Change (ONACC) in Cameroon. The training focused on strengthening national expertise in forest monitoring, data management, and greenhouse gas accounting, applying IPCC guidelines and enhancing the correct use of IPCC equations, always following the UNFCCC decisions.

The course aimed to deepen participants’ understanding of UNFCCC requirements for FRL submission and assessment, particularly regarding transparency, completeness, consistency, and methodological rigor.

The UNFCCC technical assessment review session took place from 23 to 27 March 2026 in Bonn, Germany.