Increasing Forest Disturbance in the Congo Basin is Driven by an Emerging Frontier in Cameroon

Abstract Forest disturbances pose an increasing threat to the ecosystem services provided by tropical forests in the Congo Basin, yet their distribution remains poorly understood. To address this, we create a high‐confidence forest disturbance data set for the Congo Basin from 2000 to 2022 by harmonizing the Global Forest Change (GFC) and Tropical Moist Forest (TMF) data sets. Though the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) accounted for the most disturbance observed (61,174 km 2 ), we identify Cameroon as an emerging deforestation frontier. Among all six Congo Basin countries, only Cameroon saw a significant increasing annual contribution to the total forest disturbance observed in the Congo Basin over the past 20 years (slope = 0.49% yr −1 , p = 0.004) and the second‐highest extent of forest disturbance (7,013 km 2 ). Across the Congo Basin, disturbances mainly occurred near roads (26,737 km 2 ) and outside formal land allocations (19,217 km 2 ). In Cameroon, the extent of forest disturbance in community forests (5 ± 1%) was higher than in agro‐industrial plantations (3 ± 2%) and logging concessions (3 ± 1%). We observe a basin‐wide increase in the extent and frequency of forest disturbances, suggesting a shift toward commercial land‐use practices associated with larger clearing. Our findings reveal changes in forest disturbance patterns in the Congo Basin over the past 20 years that warrant continued monitoring and improved understanding of their socioeconomic drivers to prevent large‐scale deforestation as observed in the Amazon and Southeast Asia.