ential

Land use:
arable land : 3%
permanent crops: 0%
permanent pastures: 7%
forests and woodland: 77%
other: 13% (1993 est.)

Irrigated land: 100 sq km (1993 est.)

Natural hazards: periodic droughts in south; volcanic activity

Environment - current issues: poaching threatens wildlife populations;
water pollution; deforestation; refugees who arrived in mid-1994 were
responsible for significant deforestation, soil erosion, and wildlife
poaching in the eastern part of the country (most of those refugees
were repatriated in November and December 1996)

Environment - international agreements:
party to : Biodiversity, Climate Change, Endangered Species, Hazardous
Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer
Protection, Tropical Timber 83, Wetlands
signed, but not ratified: Desertification, Environmental Modification,
Tropical Timber 94

Geography - note: straddles Equator; very narrow strip of land that
controls the lower Congo river and is only outlet to South Atlantic
Ocean; dense tropical rain forest in central river basin and eastern
highlands

@Congo, Democratic Republic of the:People

Population: 47,440,362 (July 1997 est.)

Age structure:
0-14 years : 48% (male 11,418,713; female 11,378,403)
15-64 years: 49% (male 11,412,269; female 11,980,993)
65 years and over: 3% (male 541,435; female 708,549) (July 1997 est.)

Population growth rate: 2.34% (1997 est.)

Birth rate: 47.66 births/1,000 population (1997 est.)

Death rate: 16.61 deaths/1,000 population (1997 est.)

Net migration rate: -7.66 migrant(s)/1,000 population (1997 est.)
note: in 1994, about a million refugees fled into Democratic Republic
of the Congo, formerly Zaire, to escape the fighting between the Hutus
and the Tutsis in Rwanda and Burundi; the outbreak of widespread
fighting between rebels and government forces in October 1996 spurred
about 720,000 refugees to return to Rwanda in late 1996 and early
1997; additionally, Democratic Republic of the Congo is host to about
100,000 Angolan, and about 100,000 Sudanese refugees

Sex ratio:
at birth: 1.03 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 0.95 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.76 male(s)/female
total population: 0.97 male(s)/female (1997 est.)

Infant mortality rate: 105.7 deaths/1,000 live births (1997 est.)

Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 47.03 years
male: 45.16 years
female: 48.95 years (1997 est.)

Total fer