As the world has watched with fear and fascination the fires burning in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, satellite images show a far greater number of blazes on the African continent.

The countries with the highest volumes of plantain consumption in 2018 were Democratic Republic of the Congo (5.5M tonnes), Cameroon (4.8M tonnes) and Ghana (4.1M tonnes), together comprising 59% of total consumption.

Camera traps set up by researchers in DR Congo have revealed 43 secretive forest species such as giant ground pangolins, African golden cats, leopards, cusimanses (a species of mongoose), bonobos, forest elephants and the endemic Congo peafowls.

Coffee was the second most important export for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and among the world’s finest, just four decades ago.

The forest elephants of the Congo Basin are critically endangered and face extinction.