Options available to the Congo Basin’s countries to fulfill their engagements to implement the Kunming-Montreal Framework’s target 3 by protecting 30% of each of their national land and inland waters and marine space were reviewed. At its face value, Congo Basin would need to increase its land and inland water protected areas network by 583,975-km2 (or an additional 14% of the 4,081,143 km2 of the entire region). Increasing protected areas by this magnitude is economically, socially, psychologically, and managerially problematic. Gazetting new protected areas using recent history’s methods is likely to meet resistance and would require enormous conceptual and material resources. Possible ways to address these problems include identification of existing potentials and mechanisms to be used to increase the geographic extent of protected areas without necessarily creating new strict protected areas. Sound corridors, sacred sites, community conservation areas, and high-value conservation areas within extractive concessions offer such possibilities, if they are democratically and officially recognized. Creating new protected areas to preserve currently underrepresented ecosystems remains a necessity. If corridors, sacred sites, and other mechanisms are recognized, secured, and managed adequately in addition to existing protected areas, Congo Basin countries can go beyond the Kunming-Montreal Framework by 2030. Lack of sustainable financial capacity is the chief impediment to increasing protected areas networks; lack of internal financial resources and the reluctance of the global community to financially support biodiversity conservation are the most difficult problems to solve for the Congo Basin to achieve its goals.