Brazil's Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara, attends a meeting during the UN Climate Change Conference COP 30. Credit: Hermes Caruzo/COP30

By Umar Manzoor Shah
SRINAGAR, India & BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 8 2025 (IPS)

A report by the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities (GATC) and Earth Insight paints a stark picture of how extractive industries, deforestation, and climate change are converging to endanger the world’s last intact tropical forests and the Indigenous Peoples who protect them.

The report, ‘Indigenous Territories and Local Communities on the Frontlines,’ combines geospatial analysis and community data to show that nearly one billion hectares of forests are under Indigenous stewardship, yet face growing industrial threats that could upend global climate and biodiversity goals.

Despite representing less than five percent of the world’s population, Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPs and LCs) safeguard more than half of all remaining intact forests and 43 percent of global biodiversity hotspots.

These territories store vast amounts of carbon, regulate ecosystems, and preserve cultures and languages that have sustained humanity’s relationship with nature for millennia. But the report warns that governments and corporations are undermining this stewardship through unrestrained extraction of resources in the name of economic growth or even “green transition.”

One of the main report authors, Florencia Librizzi, who is also a Deputy Director at Earth Insight, told IPS that the perspectives and stories from each region are grounded in the lived realities of Indigenous Peoples and local communities and come directly from the organizations from each of the regions that the report focuses on in Mesoamerica, Amazonia, the Congo Basin, and Indonesia.

Across four critical regions—the Amazon, Congo Basin, Indonesia, and Mesoamerica—extractive industries overlap with millions of hectares of ancestral land. In the Amazon, oil and gas blocks cover 31 million hectares of Indigenous territories, while mining concessions sprawl across another 9.8 million.

In the Congo Basin, 38 percent of community forests are under oil and gas threat, endangering peatlands that store immense quantities of carbon. Indonesia’s Indigenous territories face 18 percent overlap with timber concessions, while in Mesoamerica, 19 million hectares—17 percent of Indigenous land—are claimed for mining, alongside rampant narcotrafficking and colonization.

These intrusions have turned Indigenous territories into sacrifice zones. From nickel extraction in Indonesia to oil drilling in Ecuador and illegal logging in the Democratic Republic of Congo, corporate incursions threaten lives, livelihoods, and ecosystems. Between 2012 and 2024, 1,692 environmental defenders were killed or disappeared across GATC countries, with 208 deaths linked to extractive industries and 131 to logging. The report calls this violence “the paradox of protection”—the act of defending nature now puts those defenders at deadly risk.

Yet the report also documents extraordinary resilience. In Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve, Indigenous forest communities have achieved near-zero deforestation—only 1.5 percent forest loss between 2014 and 2024, compared to 11 percent in adjacent areas. In Colombia, Indigenous Territorial Entities maintain over 99 percent of their forests intact.

The O’Hongana Manyawa of Indonesia continue to defend their lands against nickel mining, while the Guna people of Panama manage autonomous governance systems that integrate culture, tourism, and ecology.

In the Congo, the 2022 “Pygmy Law” has begun recognizing community rights to forest governance, a historic step toward justice.

The report’s findings were released ahead of the 30th UN Climate Conference (COP30), emphasizing the urgency of aligning international climate and biodiversity frameworks with Indigenous rights.

The 2025 Brazzaville Declaration, adopted at the First Global Congress of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities from the Forest Basins, provides a roadmap for such alignment.

Signed by leaders from 24 countries representing 35 million people, it calls for five key commitments: secure land rights, free and informed consent, direct financing to communities, protection of life, and recognition of traditional knowledge.

These “Five Demands” are the cornerstone of what the GATC calls a shift “from extraction to regeneration.”

They demand an end to the violence and criminalization of Indigenous leaders and insist that global climate finance reach local hands.

The report notes that, despite the 2021 COP26 pledge of 1.7 billion dollars for forest protection, only 7.6 percent of that money reached Indigenous communities directly.

“Without financing that strengthens territorial governance, all global commitments will remain symbolic,” said the GATC in a joint statement.

Reacting to the announcement of the The Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) announced on the first day of the COP Leaders’ Summit and touted as a “new and innovative financing mechanism” that would see forest countries paid every single year in perpetuity for keeping forests standing, Juan Carlos Jintiach, Executive Secretary of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities (GATC) said, “Even if the TFFF does not reach all its fundraising goals, the message it conveys is already powerful: climate and forest finance cannot happen without us Indigenous Peoples and local leadership at its core.

“This COP offers a crucial opportunity to amplify that message, especially as it takes place in the heart of the Amazon. We hope the focus remains on the communities who live there, those of us who have protected the forests for generations. What we need most from this COP is political will to guarantee our rights, to be recognized as partners rather than beneficiaries, to ensure transparency and justice in climate finance, and to channel resources directly to those defending the land, despite growing risks and violence.”

Deforestation in Acre State, Brazil. Credit: Victor Moriyama / Climate Visuals

Jintiach, who is also the report’s author, told IPS  the Global Alliance has proposed establishing clear mechanisms to ensure that climate finance reaches Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ initiatives directly, not through layers of external actors.

“That’s why we have established our Shandia Platform, a global Indigenous-led mechanism designed to channel direct, predictable, and effective climate finance to our territories. Through the Shandia Funds Network, we ensure that funding is managed according to our priorities, governance systems, and traditional knowledge. The platform also includes a transparent system to track and monitor funding flows, with a specific indicator for direct finance to Indigenous Peoples and local communities,” he said.

The report also warns that global conservation goals such as the “30×30” biodiversity target—protecting 30 percent of Earth’s land and sea by 2030—cannot succeed without Indigenous participation. Policies under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the Paris Agreement must, it says, embed Indigenous governance and knowledge at their core. Otherwise, climate strategies risk reinforcing historical injustices by excluding those who have sustained these ecosystems for centuries.

Jintiach said that based on his experience  at GATC, Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’-led conservation models are not only vital but also deeply effective.

“In our territories, it is our peoples and communities who are conserving both nature and culture, protecting the forests, waters, and biodiversity that sustain all of us,” he said.

He added, “Multiple studies confirm what we already know from experience: Indigenous and local community lands have lower rates of deforestation and higher biodiversity than those managed under state or private models. Our success is rooted in ancestral knowledge, collective governance, and a deep spiritual connection to the land, principles that ensure true, lasting conservation.”

According to Jintiach, the GATC 5 demands and the Brazzaville Declaration are critical global reference points and we are encouraged by the level of interest and engagement displayed by political leaders in the lead-up to COP 30.

Map highlighting extractive threats faced by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities across the Amazon basin. Credit: GATC

“We are hopeful that these principles will be uplifted and championed at COP 30, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, CBD COP 17 and on the long road ahead,” he said.

When asked about the rising violence against environmental defenders, Jintiach said that the Brazzaville Declaration calls for a global convention to protect Environmental Human Rights Defenders, including Indigenous Peoples and local community leaders.

According to him, the governments must urgently tackle the corruption and impunity fueling threats and violence while supporting collective protection and preventing rollback of rights.

“This also means upholding and strengthening the Escazú Agreement and UNDRIP, and ensuring long-term protection through Indigenous Peoples and local communities-led governance, secure land tenure, and accountability for human rights violations.”

Earth Insight’s Executive Director Tyson Miller described the collaboration as a call to action rather than another policy document. “Without urgent recognition of territorial rights, respect for consent, and protection of ecosystems, global climate and biodiversity goals cannot be achieved,” he said. “This report is both a warning and an invitation—to act with courage and stand in solidarity.”

The case studies highlight how Indigenous governance models already offer proven solutions to the climate crisis. In the Brazilian Amazon, Indigenous organizations have proposed a self-determined Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to reduce emissions through territorial protection. Their slogan, “Demarcation is Mitigation,” underlines how securing Indigenous land rights directly supports the Paris Agreement’s goals. Similarly, in Central Africa, communities have pioneered decolonized conservation approaches that integrate Indigenous leadership into national park management, reversing exclusionary models imposed since colonial times.

In Mesoamerica, the Muskitia region—known as “Little Amazon”—illustrates both crisis and hope. It faces deforestation from drug trafficking and illegal logging, yet community-based reforestation and forest monitoring are restoring ecosystems and livelihoods. Women and youth play leading roles in governance, showing how inclusive leadership strengthens resilience.

The report’s conclusion is unequivocal: where Indigenous rights are recognized, ecosystems thrive; where they are ignored, destruction follows. It argues that the fight for land is inseparable from the fight against climate change. Indigenous territories are not just sources of raw materials; they are “living systems of governance, culture, and biodiversity” essential to humanity’s survival.

The Brazzaville Declaration urges governments to ratify international human rights conventions, end deforestation by 2030, and integrate Indigenous territories into national biodiversity and climate plans. It also calls for a global convention to protect environmental human rights defenders, whose safety is central to planetary stability.

For GATC’s leaders, the message is deeply personal. “Our traditional knowledge is the language of Mother Earth,” said Joseph Itongwa, GATC Co-Chair from the Congo Basin. “We cannot protect the planet if our territories, our identity, and our livelihoods remain under threat.”

This feature is published with the support of Open Society Foundations.

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Africa's children still stand as the number one victims of suffering and destitution across the continent. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE, Aug 26 2015 (IPS)

“Poverty has become part of me,” says 13-year-old Aminata Kabangele from the Democratic Republic of Congo. “I have learned to live with the reality that nobody cares for me.”

Aminata, who fled her war-torn country after the rest of her family was killed by armed rebels and now lives as a as a refugee in Zimbabwe’s Tongogara refugee camp in Chipinge on the country’s eastern border, told IPS that she has had no option but to resign her fate to poverty.

Despite the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, African children still stand as the number one victims of suffering and destitution across the continent.“Poverty has become part of me. I have learned to live with the reality that nobody cares for me” – Aminata Kabangele, a 13-year-old refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo

“In every country you may turn to here in Africa, children are at the receiving end of poverty, with high numbers of them becoming orphans,” Melody Nhemachena, an independent social worker in Zimbabwe, told IPS.

Based on a 2013 UNICEF report, the World Bank has estimated that up to 400 million children under the age of 17 worldwide live in extreme poverty, the majority of them in Africa and Asia.

According to human rights activists, the growing poverty facing many African families is also directly responsible for the fate of 200,000 African children that the United Nations estimates are sold into slavery every year.

“Many families in Africa are living in abject poverty, forcing them to trade their children for a meal to persons purporting to employ or take care of them (the children), but it is often not the case as the children end up in forced labour, earning almost nothing at the end of the day,” Amukusana Kalenga, a child rights activist based in Zambia, told IPS.

West Africa is one of the continent’s regions where modern-day slavery has not spared children.

According to Mike Sheil, who was sent by British charity and lobby group Anti-Slavery International to West Africa to photograph the lives of children trafficked as slaves and forced into marriage, for many families in Benin – one of the world’s poorest countries – “if someone offers to take their child away … it is almost a relief.”

Global March Against Child Labour, a worldwide network of trade unions, teachers’ and civil society organisations working to eliminate and prevent all forms of child labour, has reported that a 2010 study showed that “a staggering 1.8 million children aged 5 to 17 years worked in cocoa farms of Ivory Coast and Ghana at the cost of their physical, emotional, cognitive and moral well-being.”

“Trafficking in children is real. Gabon, for example, is considered an Eldorado and draws a lot of West African immigrants who traffic children,” Gabon’s Social Affairs Director-General Mélanie Mbadinga Matsanga told a conference on preventing child trafficking held in Congo’s southern city of Pointe Noire in 2012.

Gabon is primarily a destination and transit country for children and women who are subjected to forced labour and sex trafficking, according to the U.S. State Department’s 2011 human trafficking report.

In Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, a study of child poverty showed that over 70 percent of children are not registered at birth while more than 30 percent experience severe educational deprivation. According to UNICEF Nigeria, about 4.7 million children of primary school age are still not in school.

“These boys and girls, some as young as 13-years-old, serve in the ranks of terror groups like Boko Haram, often participating  in suicide operations, and act as spies,” Hillary Akingbade, a Nigerian independent conflict management expert, told IPS.

“Girls here are often forced into sexual slavery while many other African children are abducted or recruited by force, with others joining out of desperation, believing that armed groups offer their best chance for survival,” she added.

Akingbade’s remarks echo the reality of poverty which also faces children in the Central African Republic, where an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 boys and girls became members of armed groups following an outbreak of a bloody civil war in the central African nation in December 2012, according to Save the Children.

Violence plagued the Central African Republic when the country’s Muslim Seleka rebels seized control of the country’s capital Bangui in March 2013, prompting a backlash by the largely Christian militia.

A 2013 report by Save the Children stated that in the Central African Republic, children as young as eight were being recruited by the country’s warring parties, with some of the children forcibly conscripted while others were impelled by poverty.

Last year, the United Nations reported that the recruitment of children in South Sudan’s on-going civil war was “rampant”, estimating that there were 11,000 children serving in both rebel and government armies, some of who had volunteered but others forced by their parents to join armed groups with the hopes of changing their economic fortunes for the better.

Meanwhile, back in the Tongogara refugee camp, Aminata has resigned herself. “I have descended into worse poverty since I came here in the company of other fleeing Congolese and, for many children like me here at the camp, poverty remains the order of the day.”

Edited by Phil Harris   

Journalists, activists, hip hop artists and a United States diplomat were rounded up by police at a pro-democracy event on Sunday in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, sponsored in part by the U.S. government. Security forces charged them with threatening stability, according to a government spokesperson.

The diplomat, Kevin Sturr, “Was among a group of people believed to be in the process of bringing an attack against state security”, said Congo’s Information Minister Lambert Mende. Sturr, who works with the USAID’s democracy and good governance program in Congo, was returned to the U.S. Embassy late Sunday night, Mende said on Monday.

The activists included members of Burkina Faso’s Balai Citoyen and Senegal’s Y’en a Marre movements. Both have led large-scale protests in recent years against presidents attempting to extend their time in office.

The round up was an unpleasant surprise for U.S. officials. “This event is one of many activities the U.S. government supports that involve youth and civil society as part of our broader commitment to encourage a range of voices to be heard,” the U.S. Embassy said in a statement.

State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki complained that U.S. authorities had not been officially informed about why Sturr was detained. “Our ambassador in Kinshasa has raised this at the highest levels with the DRC government,” Psaki said.

Congolese government officials and ruling coalition parties were invited to the event and some attended, the Embassy said, describing the youth groups involved as well-regarded and non-partisan.

According to the Minister, the Congo’s intelligence services believed the news conference — billed as an exchange between African civil society organizations — was in fact a project organized by “instructors in insurrection”.

“There are the three Senegalese and the Burkinabe and their Congolese accomplices who continue to be questioned,” Mende added. “Each will have his fate… Either they will be released or put at the disposition of the public prosecutor.”

Foreign activists arrested included Fadel Barro, a member of the Senegalese collective of journalists and hip-hop artists “Y’en a Marre”, which helped organize protests against former President Abdoulaye Wade’s bid for a third term in 2012.

The group had gathered to support “Filimbi” – a Congolese movement that aims for greater youth participation in politics, when they were rounded up.

Proposed changes in Congo’s electoral law have sparked mass protests against what many view as an attempt by President Joseph Kabila to prolong his time in power. Human Rights Watch reported that at least 40 people were killed in Kinshasa and the eastern city of Goma at protests so far this year.

Edited by Roger Hamilton-Martin

Canada has been leading the world in forest loss since 2000, accounting for 21 percent of global forest loss. Credit: Crustmania/ CC by 2.0

By Stephen Leahy
UXBRIDGE, Canada, Sep 5 2014 (IPS)

The world’s last remaining forest wilderness is rapidly being lost – and much of this is taking place in Canada, not in Brazil or Indonesia where deforestation has so far made the headlines.

A new satellite study reveals that since 2000 more than 104 million hectares of forests – an area three times the size of Germany – have been destroyed or degraded.Since 2000 more than 104 million hectares of forests – an area three times the size of Germany – have been destroyed or degraded

“Every four seconds, an area of the size of a football (soccer) field is lost,” said Christoph Thies of Greenpeace International.

The extent of this forest loss, which is clearly visible in satellite images taken in 2000 and 2013, is “absolutely appalling” and has a global impact, Thies told IPS, because forests play a crucial in regulating the climate.

The current level of deforestation is putting more CO₂ into the atmosphere than all the world’s cars, trucks, ships and planes together, he said, adding that “governments must take urgent action” to protect intact forests by creating more protected areas, strengthening the rights of forest communities and other measures, including convincing lumber, furniture manufacturers and others to refuse to use products from virgin forests.

Greenpeace is one of several partners in the Intact Forest Landscapes initiative, along with the University of Maryland, World Resources Institute and WWF-Russia among others, that uses satellite imagery technology to determine the location and extent of the world’s last large undisturbed forests.

The new study found that half of forest loss from deforestation and degradation occurred in just three countries: Canada, Russia and Brazil. These countries are also home to about 65 percent of world’s remaining forest wilderness.

However, despite all the media attention on deforestation in the Amazon forest and the forests of Indonesia, it is Canada that has been leading the world in forest loss since 2000, accounting for 21 percent of global forest loss. By contrast, the much-better known deforestation in Indonesia has accounted for only four percent.

Brazil’s Amazon forest – 2000. Credit: Courtesy of Global Forest Watch

Brazil’s Amazon forest – 2013. Credit: Courtesy of Global Forest Watch

Massive increases in oil sands and shale gas developments, as well as logging and road building, are the major cause of Canada’s forest loss, said Peter Lee of Global Forest Watch Canada, an independent Canadian NGO.

A big increase in forest fires is another cause of forest loss. Climate change has rapidly warmed northern Canada, drying out the boreal forests and bogs and making them more vulnerable to fires.

In Canada’s northern Alberta’s oil sands region, more than 12.5 million hectares of forest have been crisscrossed by roads, pipelines, power transmission lines and other infrastructure, Lee told IPS.

Canada’s oil sands and shale gas developments are expected to double and possibly triple in the next decade and “there’s little interest at the federal or provincial political level in conserving intact forest landscapes,” Lee added.

The world’s last remaining large undisturbed forests are where most of the planet’s remaining wild animals, birds, plants and other species live, Nigel Sizer, Global Director of the Forest Programme at the World Resources Institute, told a press conference.

Animals like Siberian tigers, orangutans and woodland caribou require large areas of forest wilderness, Sizer noted, and “losing these top species leads to a decline of entire forest ecosystems in subtle ways that are hard to measure.”

While forests can re-grow, this takes many decades, and in northern forests more than 100 years. However, if species go extinct or there are too few individuals left, it will take longer for a full forest ecosystem to recover – if ever.

Trees, plants and all the creatures that make up a healthy forest ecosystem provide humanity with a range of vital services including storing and cleaning water, cleaning air, soaking up CO₂ and producing oxygen, as well as being sources of food and wood. These ‘free’ services are often irreplaceable and generally worth far more than the value of lumber or when converted to cattle pasture, said Sizer.

In just 13 years, South America’s Paraguay converted an incredible 78 percent of its remaining forest wilderness mainly into large-scale soybean farms and rough pasture, the study found. Satellite images and maps on the new Global Forest Watch website offer see-it-with-your-own eyes images of Paraguay’s forests vanishing over time.

The images and data collected for the study are accessible via various tools on the website. They reveal that 25 percent of Europe’s largest remaining forest, located 900 km north of Moscow, has been chopped down to feed industrial logging operations. In the Congo, home of the world’s second largest tropical forest, 17 percent has been lost to logging, mining and road building. The Global Forest Watch website also shows details of huge areas of Congo forest licensed for future logging.

Deforestation starts with road building, often linked to logging and extractive industries, said Thies. In some countries, like Brazil and Paraguay, the prime reason is conversion to large-scale agriculture, usually for crops that will be exported.

The new data could help companies with sustainability commitments in determining which areas to avoid when sourcing commodities like timber, palm oil, beef and soy. Market-led efforts need to gain further support given the lax governance and enforcement in many of these forest regions, Thies said.

He called on the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) – a voluntary certification programme that sets standards for forest management – to “also play a stronger role” and to improve those standards in order to better protect wilderness forests.

Without urgent action to curb deforestation, it is doubtful that any large-scale wild forest will remain by the end of this century, concluded Sizer.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

The M23 rebels are among the other rebel groups and Congolese army who have been accused of extorting money from locals to pay their soldiers. Credit: William Lloyd-George/IPS

By Taylor Toeka Kakala
GOMA , Mar 15 2013 (IPS)

On the way to his fields, Denise Mambo, a resident of Kitshanga, North Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, stops at a rope laid across his path.

“No one is allowed to go past this rope without paying the ‘lala salama’,” a Congolese army (FARDC) sergeant known only by the nickname Django tells IPS.

The “lala salama”, Swahili for “sleep in peace”, is an illegal tax often imposed by the army and rebels in the eastern DRC battlegrounds of North and South Kivu, Maniema, Katanga and Eastern provinces — and particularly in the Ituri region in the northeast.

Initially, “lala salama” was the name of a radio programme broadcast by Kisangani-based Radio Liberté, in northeastern DRC, in 2000. At the time, the programme was run by an officer belonging to a Congolese political grouping allied to Uganda, which accused Rwanda and its allies within the DRC of causing the country’s misfortunes.

Now “lala salama” is more about money than ideology.

Each person on their way to harvest their fields must pay a tax of one dollar or an equivalent of two to three kilogrammes of harvested crops to the men posted at the informal checkpoints. This illegal tax is sometimes called a “security contribution.”

“Sometimes the army and the militia will start fighting just to control a market or a path leading to the fields,” Jean Ngoa, the traditional leader for Kitshanga, North Kivu, told IPS.

The armed groups have also levied a tax parallel to the local authority taxes in market places. The tax ranges from 20 cents to 10 dollars, depending on the quantity of a vendor’s merchandise. This money is payable on market days, usually twice a week, and mirrors the rates of local authorities, who also collect them at similar times.

Ever since the failed integration of former rebels into the Congolese army in 2009, which led to the M23 rebellion or army mutiny in April 2012, the civilian population has become one of the main sources of income to feed the FARDC, armed rebel groups, and Rwandese militia such as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda.

Today, all five provinces of eastern DRC abound with militia, and thousands of civilians have been victims of looting, rape and murder, according to Juvenal Munubo, a parliamentarian for Walikale, North Kivu, and a member of the National Assembly’s Committee for Defence and Security.

“But civilians are also subjected to unbearable financial exploitation,” he told IPS.

General François Olenga was appointed chief-of-staff of the FARDC in November 2012, following accusations in a United Nations report that his predecessor, General Gabriel Amisi, was selling arms to the rebels. Olenga acknowledged the inefficiency of the army and tried to reassure his troops. “I will personally make sure that every soldier receives his pay,” he promised at the time.

Although army chiefs say the average salary of a soldier increased from 10 to 60 dollars a month between 2006 and 2013, soldiers say their pay is inadequate and irregular. Civilians have been the easiest prey for racketeering.

“If we are lucky enough to receive money, we get 60,000 dollars to pay one thousand men, including officers,” Captain George Sakombi of the 810th regiment in Masisi, North Kivu told IPS.

“We were in an army with no pay,” Lieutenant-Colonel Vianney Kazarama, the spokesperson for the M23 rebels who took control of Goma during November 2012, told IPS. The M23 rebels are from the former National Congress for the Defence of the People, which signed a peace accord with the Congolese government in March 2003.

The “lala salama” tax has encouraged the creation of armed groups. In North Kivu, for example, between 2008 and 2013, the number of armed groups increased from 12 to 25, according to civil society organisations. In South Kivu, the number of armed groups has risen from 11 in 2008 to some 20 in 2013.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a teacher from the market town of Kashuga, North Kivu told IPS that his village was attacked 12 times between April and July 2012 by the Congolese armed forces, the rebel Alliance of Patriots for a Free and Sovereign Congo, and the M26 group. The latter is a new rebel group, which is demanding the full implementation of the March 2009 peace accord between the government and the Congolese Patriotic Resistance, which is now a political party.

“When they took over Kashuga, the M26 forced every person over 13 years to pay 1,200 Congolese francs (just over a dollar),” he said. The tax is called “rengera buzima”, which means “protect life” in Kinyarwanda, the local language.

Unlike the “lala salama” where no one asks for proof of payment, “the M26 militia go through the IDP (internally displaced persons) camps, schools and churches to force everyone to show their ‘rengera buzima’ receipts,” the teacher said.

Rape survivor Angeline Mwarusena lives in Bukavu, eastern DR Congo. She is one of the 2.2 million people have been affected by the fighting in the country which started in early 2012. Credit: Einberger/argum/EED/IPS

By Passy Mubalama
GOMA, DR Congo, Mar 12 2013 (IPS)

A street in Goma’s city centre, the capital of North Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, has been nicknamed “the ward of death” because of the brutal crimes that frequently occur there.

“You will find every kind of person in this part, gays, lesbians, and unfortunately there are brothels where adults are sexually exploiting underage girls,” Major David Bodeli Dombi, the commander of the special police force for the protection of women and children in North Kivu, told IPS.

Over the last two years, an increasing number of brothels have opened in Goma where under-age girls are being sexually exploited and the illegal trade is on the rise.

“These brothels take in many minors, most of whom come from poor and destitute families in North Kivu,” Faustin Wasolela, the head of the child protection programme at the local non-governmental organisation Development Action for the Protection of Women and Children (AIDPROFEN), which helps young victims of sexual exploitation, told IPS.

The region has been in upheaval since April 2012, as fighting between government forces and rebel groups in North Kivu has displaced some 2.2 million people, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency.

M23 rebels near Sake, Eastern DR Congo. The rebel group withdrew from Goma on Saturday, Dec. 1. Almost 2.2 million people have been affected by the fighting in the country which started in early 2012. Credit: William Lloyd-George/IPS

Other brothels have opened up in several other wards in Goma.

“Nowadays, you will find dozens of these brothels in every ward,” Victorine Muhima, the Kasiska ward chief in Karisimbi municipality, told IPS. Like Wasolela, she also said that harsh living conditions, poverty and incessant conflict were driving the trend.

Sixteen-year-old Masika* works at the Memoire ya Nzambe, a small bar with an area of only four square metres. It is also a brothel. “I work as a waitress during the day and as a prostitute during the night to feed myself and my two-year-old daughter. I don’t know who the father of my child is,” she told IPS.

As a waitress during the day she earns 20 dollars a month. But at night she earns five dollars per client.

“I have been working here since 2010. I come from Béni, where my family lives. My parents are poor and couldn’t send me to school. We could barely get enough to eat. So I decided to come to Goma to earn some money,” Masika said.

The Memoire ya Nzambe bar sells spirits, beer and even marijuana. Rooms for clients are located in the backrooms of the bar. “You can get a girl for one or two dollars,” Emmanuel Bisimwa, a 20-year-old regular, told IPS.

However, bar owners deny sexually exploiting children. “I have five employees, but they are all men. I have no young girls working for me,” Riziki Mufiritsa, the owner of Memoire ya Nzambe, told IPS. But his claim could not be verified.

Like Masika, many other young girls between 13 and 17 are being exploited by older men, and women, in order to make easy money.

The young girls say they have no alternatives to sex work. “I don’t have a choice, I have to buy my own underwear, lotion and even sanitary towels, but there is no other work around,” said 15-year-old Rachel*.

It is a common reason that Idelphonse Birhaheka of the United Nations Children’s Fund in Goma, hears often. “Some girls tell us that they resort to sex work to pay for basics like soap, lotion, or sanitary pads,” she told IPS.

“The armed conflict in eastern DRC has impoverished many families making them unable to care for their children,” Birhaheka added.

Dechine Birindwa is one of those fathers who is finding it difficult to support his family.

“Life has become very difficult. It’s hard to afford food, never mind buy clothes and shoes for my daughters. It’s very tough and they have to fend for themselves,” he told IPS.

Though the special force for the protection of women and children has launched an investigation into the increased sexual exploitation of girls, Dombi said that it was no easy task. “It is difficult to find these brothels, but once we do so, we bring in the owners for questioning and close some brothels after our investigation,” he told IPS.

According to Dombi, the police investigated eight brothel owners in 2012, and closed down five establishments.

“We need cooperation from everyone, from the police who need to put in place deterrents, but also churches, schools, parents and even the media to fight this trend,” Wasolela said.

*Names have been withheld to protect the identity of minors.

A woman gives water to her young daughter in Mugunga I camp near the city of Goma, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Credit: Eddy Mbuyi-Oxfam International/CC-BY-2.0

By Taylor Toeka Kakala
GOMA, DR Congo, Feb 21 2013 (IPS)

Standing behind her market stall in Masisu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which overflows with cabbages, carrots and onions, Marceline Dusabe does not fit the traditional profile of an internally displaced person. She, unlike many others displaced by the internal conflict in North Kivu, is not in need of food aid.

In fact, thanks to the money that she and her husband both earn from selling the produce they grow, they are even able to live in the privacy of their own home – progress that Dusabe’s husband, Jules Birigimana, is particularly proud of.

“As soon as I was able to provide enough food for the family, I asked my hosts for permission to build my own hut on their land. I was able to do this from the money earned from my food garden,” Birigimana told IPS.

The couple is part of an estimated 910,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) across North Kivu, according to the United Nations, 150,000 of whom were displaced late last year during the heavy fighting between government forces and the rebel group M-23.

While many still have limited access to basic food and services, some 30,000 IDPs in Masisu have been able to provide for themselves thanks to a farming project called the Food Security Support Project, launched in July 2012 and run by the NGO Caritas International Belgium.

Back at the Rubaya market, the stalls that surround Dusabe’s are also owned by refugees who have benefitted from the food security project in this town some 60 kilometres to the west of the provincial capital, Goma.

The project, which is financed by the European Union, targets 5,500 IDP households (about 30,000 people) across eight small towns in the Masisu area. Each household is given access to about half a hectare of land to farm.

The refugees grow basic vegetables, like Dusabe does, or they can choose to grow two sorts of staple foods, with a choice of beans, sorghum, maize, and potatoes. In addition, each household is given ploughing implements, nutritional information, and technical support.

The partnership between Caritas, traditional local authorities and landowners was crucial to brokering access to farmland for the refugees. Land, indeed, is hotly disputed here in northern DRC, with 80 percent of the local court cases relating to land ownership, according to the Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Diocese of Goma.

The agreements brokered by Caritas are grounded in verbal sharecropping arrangements that allow refugees the use of parcels of land in return for part of the harvest.

The refugees’ first harvest was in November 2012. On average each household produced 200 killogrammes (kgs) of onions, 120 kgs of cabbage and 20 kgs of carrots.

“Since their first harvest, the participants in the project have not only increased overall food supplies, but more importantly have improved the quality and quantity of their own food intake,” George Mugabo, a nutritionist at the Rubaya health centre, told IPS.

According to a survey carried out by Caritas in December, this first harvest helped reduce the number of vulnerable people amongst the 5,550 households from 51 percent to 38 percent in five months. “The survey forecast that by November 2013, the number of vulnerable people would be down to 25 percent,” Jean-Claude Mubenga, an agronomist at the food security project, told IPS.

The project has proved successful in part because the market vegetables can be harvested in a relatively short time. As conflict in the area has reduced the supply of produce, prices have also been more competitive.

“Buyers from Goma pay two dollars for 10 kgs of cabbage, five dollars for 10 kgs of carrots or onions, and 25 dollars for a 100-kg bag of potatoes,” Dusabe told IPS. She said that in Goma, the main market for Rubaya’s produce, the resale price is double.

With M23 rebels occupying Kibumba – a region 25 kilometres north of Goma, which used to be the major market supplier – the harvests from Rubaya, for the time being, seem to be offsetting the fall in supplies.

“It is still a temporary situation,” as Goma resident Nafisa Fatuma pointed out to IPS. But Albert Ngendo, head of the local administration in Rubaya, has pleased with the project’s results so far. “The resettled families no longer have to worry about access to relief aid. This is the most important issue for me,” he told IPS.

Despite the health risks, officials say hundreds of families are living in a cemetery in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa. Municipal authorities seem powerless to act.

However, visiting the Kinsuka cemetery in early December, IPS counted 100 families, including around 500 children aged from less than a year old to 10.

The first structures sprang up here in 2010. Fridolin Kaweshi, the minister in charge of land-use planning, urbanisation and housing, told IPS that the government has repeatedly banned the construction of homes on this site.

In April, houses in the cemetery were demolished on orders from the provincial governor, but late at night, the occupants rebuilt their small shelters of earth and wood.

“We have nowhere else to go,” resident Cynthia Bukasa told IPS. “The government has to take steps to protect us and give us a place where we can build.”

Bukasa explained that her husband, a police officer, is stationed in Bas-Congo Province, in the western part of the country. He had built a small house for her here and then left. She added that living on his salary of around 50 dollars, the family doesn’t have the resources to pay rent elsewhere.

Olivier Mandja, mayor of Mont Ngafula Commune, within whose boundaries the cemetery lies, told IPS, “The structures on this site are the work of soldiers and members of the police force over which the commune has no authority.”

Approached by IPS, soldiers and police officers at Kinsuka refused to speak, preferring to let their wives answer questions. Even the higher-ranking officers preferred to remain silent.

Other residents were happy to speak. “We got official authorisation from the authorities to build houses here and live in them,” said Jean Mbulu, a resident at the cemetery and father of three little girls, the oldest of whom is six.

Mbulu said he bought the plot from Eddy Mambuya, the traditional chief of Mont Ngafula – though he declined to show IPS the documents proving this. “I was stunned when people said we were illegally occupying this land,” he said.

Reached by IPS, Chief Mambuya, stated that while he is an authority established and recognised by the law, he denied all responsibility for the sale of land for construction on the site.

“It’s thanks to us that the cemetery is regularly cleaned up,” said Michel Aveledi, another Kinsuka resident. “We pull up the grass and pick up the plastic bags which invade the place from time to time.”

He said he wanted to see the government decommission the cemetery and build a school for the children next to the houses that are already there.

But experts believe the health of the families who live on this site is at risk, and have called on the government to take urgent steps to protect the children in particular.

Jean Myasukila is an epidemiologist based in Kinshasa. “The health risks for people living in houses built in a cemetery are enormous,” he told IPS.

“When bodies decompose, they give off odours and gases which are very harmful to health, especially of children,” he said.

“We also have to consider the flies which land on particles of bodies or bones which become unearthed, which can then alight on food or kitchen utensils. These flies are vectors for harmful microbes,” according to Myasukila. “It’s not acceptable to leave these families there, if only for reasons of hygiene.”

Chancey Maroy, a member of civil society and an environmental protection expert, told IPS that the land the graveyard is built on is not stable, as it is on a slope that is not protected by any anti-erosion mechanisms. “The structures on the burial site could also accelerate landslides, which have already been seen there. This adds to the dangers faced by the families who live there,” he said.

Kinsuka residents have also come into conflict with those using the graveyard for its intended purpose. In early December, a group of people coming to bury a body encountered strong resistance from the cemetery’s residents. On the eve of the burial, residents built a shack on the spot purchased by the bereaved family of the interment. The family was forced to bury their loved one elsewhere in the cemetery, but the authorities took no action.

Damas Balinga, director of the DRC’s Ministry for Planning and Monitoring the Implementation of the Revolution of Modernity, told IPS, “In the framework the five-year plan of action, the government is preparing the implementation of its programme to modernise the city of Kinshasa. New housing developments are in the process of being created. Families in distress need only have confidence in the government in order to benefit.”

Rebels in eastern DR Congo say they have started withdrawing from territory they have captured from government troops, days after a pullout deal was reached in neighbouring Uganda.

Amani Kabashi, deputy spokesman for the M23 group, told Al Jazeera that rebels were starting to withdraw from the town of Mushake, 50km south of the provincial capital, Goma, on Wednesday.

Diplomatic efforts to end violence in eastern Congo have been ongoing since the M23 group captured Goma in fighting with Congolese troops and advanced across the east of the country last week. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced by fighting between government troops and the rebels.

Colonel Vianney Kazarama, the M23 military spokesman, later said rebels were to withdraw from the city of Sake on Thursday and Goma on Friday.

Herve Ladsous, the U.N. peacekeeping chief, told reporters on Tuesday night that rebels’ advances had stopped.

Al Jazeera’s Nazanine Moshiri, reporting from Goma, said there were no indications of a withdrawal from the city on Wednesday.

“The big question everyone is asking here is what happens next, if M23 withdraws,” she said.

“M23 themselves are saying they want a demilitarised zone around Goma. They’re very concerned that people who’ve been working with them in the city will be targeted once they leave, if the Congolese army comes in.”

Transferring weapons

M23 military leader Sultani Makenga said on Tuesday his men would leave Goma “in three days at the latest” and pull back 20km under a deal struck in Uganda the previous day with an east African regional group.

Makenga said the rebels had begun transferring arms, provisions and medical supplies from Goma to the Rutshuru territory north of the city, an area along the Ugandan and Rwandan borders.

Rutshuru has been the rebels’ main stronghold since they launched their uprising in April.

Reports from residents and the U.N. peacekeeping mission appeared to confirm the announcement that the rebels were transporting weaponry out of Goma.

Meanwhile, the M23’s political leader, Jean Marie Runiga, said the group was not against withdrawing from Goma, but would only do so if certain conditions were met.

He said demands included the release of opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, a former prime minister who has been under unofficial house arrest since declaring victory in flawed elections last year that were officially won by President Joseph Kabila.

The rebels also demanded direct talks with the president and the dissolution of the electoral commission.

Pro-rebel demonstration

About 300 people marched through the streets of Goma on Wednesday in support of M23, Al Jazeera’s Azad Essa reported from the city.

They were carrying posters and banners calling for Kabila to step down and played music as scores of bystanders looked on from the roadside. A handful of police monitored the demonstration as the march brought traffic to a standstill.

M23 took over Goma on Tuesday last week after Congolese soldiers withdrew. U.N. forces did not intervene, saying they lacked the mandate to do so.

African leaders are scrambling to contain the latest violence in the region where nearly two decades of conflict has been fuelled by political and ethnic rifts and competition over vast minerals resources.

Kabila met M23 rebels for the first time at the weekend after a summit in the Ugandan capital Kampala.

Monday’s pullout agreement would allow the rebels to stay in their home region of Kivu, which is believed to hold up to three-quarters of the world’s reserves of coltan, a mineral used in the manufacture of many electronic products.

‘Neutral zone’

Ladsous said the U.N.’s main military adviser, General Babacar Gaye, would head for DR Congo and other East African countries to work out details of the withdrawal deal.

He said this would include the working of a proposed neutral zone, who controls Goma airport, which is currently in the hands of the U.N. mission, MONUSCO, and how to set up a proposed international neutral force for DR Congo.

The rebellion erupted in April when the M23, which U.N. experts have said is backed by neighbouring Rwanda, broke away from the DR Congo army, complaining that a 2009 deal to end a previous conflict had not been fully implemented.

The full name of the M23 is the March 23 Movement, which refers to the date when peace accords were signed in 2009 between the Congolese government and the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), a rebel group.

Under the agreements, former CNDP fighters were to be integrated into the national army, but some of them say they were not treated fairly and that the peace treaty was never fully put into effect, forcing them to commit mutiny and form the M23.

Since April, more than 475,000 people have been displaced in the country and more than 75,000 others have been forced to seek refuge in neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda, according to UNHCR.

*Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.

Humanitarian agencies working in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo have been overwhelmed following a massive displacement triggered by fighting between the Congolese army (FARDC) and rebel movement M23 in North Kivu.

“The situation is truly precarious. There is no medicine, no food. Children could die. People are spending the night outside, each one beside their baggage, and it is very cold,” says Roger Manegabe, head of a family who managed to reach Bukavu from North Kivu.

“We’re missing school. We’re hungry, there’s no drinking water, there’s no electricity. I’m 16 years old and war is all I’ve known from the time I was born. What will become of us?” said Fiston, Manegabe’s son.

Since the start of the year, conflict in the two Kivu provinces — militias in South Kivu have also clashed — has exacerbated an already dire humanitarian situation and uprooted nearly 650,000 people, according to U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) spokesperson Adrian Edwards.

Manegaba’s family is among some 250,000 civilians newly displaced since April in North Kivu, and a further 339,000 in South Kivu. According to Edwards, during this period more than 40,000 people also fled to Uganda and 15,000 others to Rwanda. And since August, Burundi has received nearly 1,000 new Congolese refugees.

Rebel fighters captured Goma, the province’s largest city, on Nov. 20, and Sake the following day, before their advance stalled.

M23 was launched on Mar. 12 with a mutiny of Congolese army officers and soldiers. It is now putting forward a broad set of demands covering politics, social issues, human rights and governance. The movement is demanding direct talks with Congolese President Joseph Kabila as a precondition for retreating from Goma.

The group’s political spokesperson, Jean-Marie Runiga Lugerero, held a preliminary meeting on Sunday Nov. 25 with Kabila in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, following a regional summit on the crisis in eastern DRC.

More than 30,000 people who fled the Kanyaruchinya sector in North Kivu have found refuge at a camp in Mugunga, swelling the total numbers there to 40,000. They told the UNHCR representative in the province, Lazard-Etienne Kouassi, who visited the camp on Nov. 22, that they had not received food since their arrival and that they were eager to go back to their villages.

They asked UNHCR to make vehicles available to help the most vulnerable displaced people, such as children and the elderly, in order to quickly return home. Kouassi promised to respond to the request in line with the agency’s capabilities.

Conditions are similarly precarious at Sake, some 27 kilometres south of Goma. Here, some displaced persons are living in classrooms or churches, while others are forced to sleep in the open. Due to a lack of humanitarian assistance, they have had to beg or work for residents of the town in order to survive.

World Vision estimates that there are 200,000 children at risk from Goma alone. According to the international charity’s reports from partners on the ground, many children have been separated from their parents in the confusion surrounding the fall of the town that began as M23 approached Goma on Nov. 12.

Many of these children are now being exploited by families in Goma, according to Junior Alimasi, head of cooperation at the children’s parliament of North Kivu. “They have gone to work for these families in exchange for food and shelter. In November, we’ve already recorded complaints of abuse from two dozen children,” he told IPS.

“We have opened the doors to several thousand refugees, mostly women and children,” Father Piero Gavioli, director of the Don Bosco Centre, which shelters children at risk, told IPS by phone from Goma.

“We’re carrying out a head count, which suggests there are around 2,500 households, with an average of two children per household, which means 6,000 or 7,000 refugees.”

The ad hoc camps for displaced people fell short of what’s needed even before the latest advance by M23, according to a report published in October by the European Union’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in South Kivu.

OCHA said the province has been affected by a deteriorating security situation which threatens thousands of civilians and has caused the reduction or even suspension of humanitarian efforts in the region.

“The creation of ad hoc camps spreads cholera, measles… the overcrowded camps include many children who have not been vaccinated and are now exposed to brutal epidemics,” the report says.

Maxime Nama, information assistant for OCHA in South Kivu said: “Children are recruited against their will, used as porters or even as combatants, and in the case of girls, sexually exploited. The violence and the fighting put them at grave risk of being injured or killed.”

Father Piero said that Western countries were guilty of failing to help the thousands of people in danger. “Today,” he told journalists during a Nov. 22 videoconference, “I will repeat my accusation, even if it goes unheard.”

Lushebere's dairy herd now numbers 420. The farm in North Kivu, DR Congo began operating again in 2003 thanks to a 33,000-euro donation from Saint Ave-Goma Entraide. Courtesy: Saint Ave-Goma Entraide

By Taylor Toeka Kakala
GOMA, DR Congo, Nov 7 2012 (IPS)

Dairy cattle are again grazing on the rolling green hills of North Kivu province, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Twenty years ago, an explosion of ethnic violence tore through this region, and the restoration of the Lushebere farm can be seen as both a sign and a guarantee of a fragile peace.

Established in the 1960s by a priest named Carbonel, the Lushebere farm was forced to close in 1993 when serious ethnic clashes broke out in March of that year at Ntoto, in the Walikale territory, before spreading into other parts of North Kivu: Masisi and Rutshuru, as well as into Kalehe, in neighbouring South Kivu.

Houses, fields, schools, health centres, markets and churches were all burned, and livestock slaughtered or driven off by opposing militias. The farm’s managers were forced to suspend activity while many families fled Masisi to the provincial capital, Goma, or into neighbouring Rwanda and Burundi.

During the ten years the farm was closed, the eucalyptus trees there were cut down and sold to pay wages to the workers who remained behind to guard the property.

Across this region, where charcoal is the only source of fuel, illegal felling of trees is on the increase, even within the national park.

“Nine out of ten households use this black gold for heating and cooking,” said Emmanuel de Mérode, director of the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature.

“Since 2003, we have planted 20,000 eucalyptus trees to replace those which were cut down and sold,” Father Diogène Harerimana, director of the farm, told IPS.

The 558-hectare farm began operating again in 2003 thanks to a 33,000-euro donation from Saint Ave-Goma Entraide (SAGE), an association created in France in 2002 to help build peace among the ethnic groups in Masisi through shared economic activities.

The funds arrived to the farm in the form of equipment that had already been purchased. SAGE has also provided the farm with a cold room to store its milk products and a 4×4 to transport them to market in Goma.

In July, the farm received another grant of 61,000 euros, this time from the Rotary Club of Vannes, a city in the west of France, and from Rotary International. This money has gone towards new equipment for pasteurising and packaging the milk.

A technician from the European company which sold the machinery to Lushebere visited the dairy to train employees on how to maintain the equipment. “We are now functioning autonomously,” said Harerimana.

With the new equipment, the farm is now packaging milk in one-litre bags which sell for a dollar each, though the daily output is still no more than 50 litres.

“Residents of Goma and humanitarian aid workers within a 20 kilometre radius (of Lushebere) are slowly getting used to this packaging for the milk,” said Harerimana.

Lushebere’s dairy herd now numbers 420, still far short of the 2,000 cows it had in 1990. The farm also had 1,000 employees 20 years ago. Today it employs 60 workers, with monthly salaries of between 25 and 130 dollars.

But since July, the farm has been able to increase production of cheese from five to 35 kilos per day.

“Now, our milk is first tested to detect any traces of bacteria before being transferred into big tanks and processed into cheese,” said Harerimana.

The rounds of cheese are sold for five dollars a kilo, compared to three dollars/kg for cheese produced elsewhere – a premium consumers are willing to pay because it’s made from pasteurised milk.

“What’s rare is dear, and what’s dear is rare,” said Jacques Bonana, one of the farm’s customers. Bonana works for a humanitarian agency at the Lushebere displaced persons camp.

Many people agree that the dairy is the best in the region, said Charles Balume, owner of a restaurant in Goma, the capital of this eastern province of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Speaking to IPS at the Francophonie Village in Kinshasa, the capital of DRC, in mid-October, Carly Kasivita Nzanzu, provincial minister of agriculture and rural development in North Kivu, said “These new facilities will again make this operation a true tool for socio-economic development for the Lushebere region and for all of North Kivu.”

In this region, where suspicion and mistrust between people and communities linger, Monsignor Théophile Kaboy, the bishop of Goma, doesn’t hide his concern.

He fears the return of militiamen from Ntoto: the Raïa Mutomboki (meaning “we’re clearing non-natives” in Swahili) who often fight against the Nyatura (which means “erase and uproot the so-called natives” in Kinyarwanda). Each militia is supported by politicians.

Hanging from the door of a mini-bus taxi as it jerks and jinks through traffic, 16-year-old Gires Manoka calls out the van’s destination to potential passengers as it crosses Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

One pedestrian asks the fresh-faced teen if he shouldn’t be in school instead of working.

“I was in grade seven last year,” Manoka replies, “but I had no one to pay my school fees. I got no choice but to hustle; this work keeps my family alive.”

There are thousands of teenagers across the Democratic Republic of Congo who, like Manoka, have to work to support themselves. Many of them have dropped out of school to sell sweets, peanuts, tissues and other small items to passersby.

Boniface Mbalu, a parent, told IPS: “The tough economic situation forces youngsters to work part time to meet their growing needs while going to school. The least fortunate leave school to earn a living.”

He pointed out that education is not free in DRC, and many poor families can’t afford to buy uniforms and other required items.

Dr Paul Basikila, head of the United Nations Children’s Fund office in Kinshasa, said that his agency had taken steps to improve the quality of teaching and help children to go to school. “These measures would be more effective if school fees were also waived, as announced by the government,” he added.

“At the start of the 2012-2013 school year,” he told IPS, “UNICEF launched an awareness campaign in Kasaï-Occidental province to register 40,000 children, including 18,000 girls, in primary school. We have also worked to raise awareness among parents whose children have reached school age.”

Cécile Tshiyombo, a member of the Congolese teachers’ union, said that the problems facing the DRC’s education system are complex. “These kids left to hustle for themselves, children who already work for a wage just like adults: they don’t want to go to school any more. They’re already independent at their age, which is not normal,” she told IPS.

Tshiyombo thinks that many children also turn away from school because what’s on offer is no longer attractive. “The diploma issued at the end of a course of study (at secondary or university level) leads nowhere. If there are graduates selling sweets or ice water to make a living, then what future will younger people see for themselves?”

Joseph Paulusi has been shining shoes since he was 11. Now 16, he told IPS: “I went to school until primary six. But after my father died, my mother couldn’t afford to pay for me to stay in school, so I chose to become a shoe-shiner.”

He has become the household’s breadwinner. “This work lets me help my mother out. With the money I make, about 15,000 Congolese francs per day (around 16 dollars), she is able to feed the whole family.”

Déogratias Nendumba, national coordinator of the government’s effort, said “The Congolese government is well aware of the situation of thousands of children having abandoned school. In response, it has launched a national inquiry.”

The 35,000 children who were surveyed – including more than 25,000 girls – dropped out of school in 2011-2012 for various reasons, such as poverty, war, and the exodus from rural areas, said Nendumba.

“These children have the right to be cared for by society so they can flourish as adults. It’s a paradox that they have to look after their families. Those who do stay in school are often discouraged and lose their motivation when they are regularly chased out of class for non-payment of school fees,” he told IPS.

According to statistics from the service for planning and education statistics, the number of students registered in school at all levels for the 2011-2012 school year rose to 3,158,193, of whom just 624,720 were girls.

“Facing a declining quality of life, we fear there will be far fewer students who finish the present school year (2012-2013),” said Mathieu Kembe, an official at the planning office.

Three weeks after the new school year began in Brazzaville, many students in the capital of the Republic of the Congo have yet to attend a single class. The city is still trying to recover from a huge explosion at an arms dump in March. “I still haven’t gone back to school,” said 13-year-old Judicaëlle. Her family is among more than a hundred still living in tents at the Félix Eboué emergency shelter.

“My parents died in the explosions,” she told IPS, “and my aunt still hasn’t received the payment of three million CFA francs (around 6,000 dollars) that the government is giving each affected family.”

The Mar. 4 explosion at an ammunition depot at the Mpila army base in the eastern part of the Congolese capital killed 280 people, according to official figures, with 1,500 seriously injured and thousands more left homeless.

Nancy, 18, is among another group of victims of the blast who have been housed at the Marchand Stadium. She has also dropped out of school.

“There are 20 students here, but we don’t know how to go back to class. Our parents are already struggling just to feed us, and when we ask them about school, they won’t even look at us,” she told IPS.

Among those living at the stadium are people waiting to receive the 6,000 dollar grant the government announced it would pay to each family affected by the disaster. This has left them in a vulnerable position.

“The explosions put me out of work, and my wife saw all her merchandise smashed. No one has come to help us,” said Michel Bobenda, a carpenter whose workshop was destroyed by the blast. “How can we cover the cost of school for the children?”

The United Nations Children’s Fund handed out 400 back-to-school kits at the Cité des 17 shelter. But not all the students who got them are satisfied.

“I’m in high school, and UNICEF is giving out little notebooks meant for preschool and primary. I don’t know what to do,” said Jonas Doungou, who was only able to register for classes at a technical school thanks to a good samaritan. “What’s more, to get from here to school costs me at last 900 CFA (around two dollars) a day for transport. Where will I find that?”

Dozens of other students from the 5 Février Technical School face the same problem. They’ve all been transferred to the 1 Mai school downtown.

“Transport is a problem,” said Juste Iniambe, a first year student, “but the government isn’t doing anything. It’s crazy!”

A total of 22,000 children, from preschool through high school, were affected by the Mpila disaster. The government agreed to pay a monthly transport allowance of 20 dollars per student, but this has proved insufficient for many youngsters who have to travel long distances to reach the schools they’ve been reassigned to.

But the authorities are taking action. Some schools in neighbouring areas that had fallen into disrepair have been rehabilitated. Their capacity has also been increased to accommodate students displaced from around Mpila; for example, the Fleuve Congo School has had 25 classrooms renovated.

Work has also been carried out at the Pierre Ntsiété Primary School, where Lucie Georgette Nguekoua is director. “We actually have extra classrooms now,” she told IPS. “It’s a shame that we had to wait for people to die before refitting these buildings.”

On the other hand, the schools destroyed in the explosion remain in ruins. At the 31 Juillet School, engineer Abdramane Batcheli told IPS that rebuilding would take time.

“We will rebuild both buildings, including the upstairs, and put up a third one. We have just started on the walls,” he said.

Many private schools are also still piles of rubble while their owners wait for compensation from the government.

The 1,400 students at Lycée de la Révolution have been transferred to Agostino Neto High School.

Many students transferred to other functioning schools are still unfortunately missing class. “We have two classrooms for students from 31 Juillet, but most of them are not coming in,” Georges Otaha, director of the Fleuve Congo School, told IPS.

In addition, 480 teachers have been trained to provide psychological care for students who were victims of the explosions. “We will set up groups for psychosocial support at the level of individual schools,” Jean Clotaire Tomby, the director general for social affairs, commented to IPS.

Civil society organisations say the government has to fulfill its responsibility for support for all affected students.

“The state is responsible for what happened, so it has to fix it. School materials, meeting the costs of displacement and providing moral support must be guaranteed for these students,” said Roch Euloge N’zobo, executive director of the Congolese Observatory for Human Rights, a non-governmental organisation based in Brazzaville.

Despite the desperate lack of access to water for domestic use in Mwene Ditu, in the central Democratic Republic of Congo, Dieudonné Ilunga spent a good part of July blocking up residents’ wells.

“They’ve dug them in old cemeteries, in newly-demarcated lots, next to toilets,” said Ilunga, head of the Water Resources Research Department in the city, the second largest in DRC’s Kasaï-Orientale province.

Just ten percent of Mwene Ditu’s 600,000 residents are connected to the water supply network – and even for these lucky few, water flows through the taps only on Monday and Friday.

Vianney Muadi, a mother of two in the city’s Musadi neighbourhood, said she stores as much water as possible when it runs. “Sometimes, we go whole weeks without access,” she told IPS.

“But drinking water must not be left open to the air,” said Ilunga. He wants to see the network rehabilitated and extended into outlying neighbourhoods, but the public water utility, REGIDESO, is facing severe challenges across the province.

Few of the 3.3 million residents of the provincial capital, Mbuji Mayi, are served by the city’s aging pipe network.

“Our network only reaches 3,000 clients, and basically all of them are in Mbuji Mayi,” admitted Jean-Pierre Mbambu, head of the REGIDESO’s water works in the city.

Pipes are frequently damaged by uncontrolled runoff from rainwater. And even when these breaches are repaired, the utility is often unable to pump water, due to power outages. The provincial administration has tried to help with diesel to power generators, but this is a costly option – especially with REGIDESO struggling with funding problems linked to bankrupt customers.

The many people who are not connected to the grid have to fend for themselves. Dozens of boreholes have been drilled, particularly in Mwene Ditu, and in other parts of Kasaï-Orientale province in the east of the country.

People have also turned to rivers and springs near various towns for water.

“But these supply points are badly looked after and even less well protected,” said Placide Mukena Kabongo, head of the National Rural Water Department (SNHR) in Ngandanjika, some 90 kilometres southeast of Mbuji Mayi. He said his staff members were doing their best to explain to people how to prevent contamination of their water sources.

“SNHR dug 578 wells and constructed 480 water points in eight of the 16 territories that make up the province,” Mukena told IPS, adding that these waterworks dated back to colonial times though they were rehabilitated by the SNHR after independence.

Many other shallow wells have been dug by unemployed youth trying to earn a living. “But they’re doing this without respecting standards, making the quality of the water doubtful,” said Kankonde. He also complained about the use of unclean buckets to draw water and the absence of drainage to keep dirty water from pooling around the wells.

“We took a dead toad out of our well one day last year,” Adjany Tshimbombo told IPS. Since then, Tshimbombo, a student at the University of Mbuji Mayi, won’t drink the water without boiling it first.

The unsurprising consequence has been increasing rates of waterborne disease, according to provincial medical authorities.

Dr. Musole Kankonde, head of hygiene at the provincial health department, told IPS that diseases like diarrhoea, dysentery, bilharzia, and typhoid fever are affecting increasing numbers of people, striking children and adults alike, in both rural and urban areas.

“In just the first half of 2012, we recorded more than 79,000 cases of diarrhoea and dysentery, with 29 deaths,” said Jean-Pierre Katende Nsumba, the doctor in charge of disease control in the province.

Kankonde told IPS that his hands were tied when it comes to addressing the problem. “I can’t forbid people to drink water from wells or springs. All I can ask is that they maintain wells carefully and treat their drinking water to avoid falling ill,” he said.

His colleague Nsumba said people in the province are generally unable to afford water purification tablets. “I advise that all drinking water – whether it comes from REGIDESO, rivers, springs or wells – be boiled before use to prevent disease,” he said.

As the situation in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continues to deteriorate in the wake of an armed rebellion that began in April, some activists have strengthened calls for foreign military intervention.

“The idea of an international force has divided us, but we have decided that there is indeed a need for a military force in the region,” Baudoin Hamuli Kabarhuza, national coordinator with the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, told a panel discussion here on Wednesday, speaking from Kinshasa.

Kabarhuza stipulated that such a force would need to be international and under the auspices of both the African Union and the United Nations.

The issue is also currently being debated within the U.S. government.

“Is there a military solution to this problem? Can we effect a military change on the ground militarily to change a political outcome?” Steven Koutsis, acting director of the Office of Central African Affairs in the U.S. State Department, said on Wednesday. “If you boil everything down, that is the question we are discussing within the U.S. government and with our partners.”

Since April, eastern Congo has been increasingly torn apart by rebels that have specifically targeted civilian populations. Taking advantage of desertions among the Congolese armed forces in the spring, multiple armed groups have launched a series of bloody sectarian attacks.

At least one of these groups, known as the M23, accuses the Kinshasa government of violating a 2009 peace agreement with Rwanda. According to a U.N. report released in June as well as multiple other sources, the M23 is receiving support directly from the Rwandan government.

While there is currently an unofficial cessation in fighting between the M23 and the DRC government, there is no ceasefire agreement and no monitoring is taking place.

Meanwhile, according to Koutsis, “Both sides are reinforcing their positions, and if for some reason the ceasefire fails, the return to military action would be much more violent than we’ve seen so far.”

According to the U.N.’s refugee agency, more than 470,000 Congolese have fled their homes since April.

On Wednesday, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay noted the “sheer viciousness” of the violence, stating, “In some cases, the attacks against civilians may constitute crimes against humanity.”

Most capable force?

The United Nations itself already has a military contingent operating in Congo, an 18,000-strong peacekeeping force known as MONUSCO. But this “stabilisation mission” has come under increased criticism for a perceived failure to protect civilians.

“We are facing, again, a fundamental humanitarian crisis in eastern Congo, and thus far the international community, and in particular MONUSCO, have not taken the action essential to bring it to a rapid end,” Mark Schneider, a senior vice president with the International Crisis Group, a watchdog organisation, said in Washington on Wednesday.

“We believe that unless there’s more demonstrated willingness by MONUSCO to use its forces in a more robust manner within its mandate, it’s very unlikely that you’re going to be able to get the political backing that’s necessary.”

While there are differences in perception over exactly what MONUSCO’s mandate allows for, and thus to what extent it would be able to unilaterally confront the armed groups in eastern Congo, Schneider suggested the issue is fairly clear.

“There is substantial authorisation for MONUSCO to give the protection of civilians top priority – this is not an offensive action, but rather is designed to protect civilians,” he said.

“MONUSCO is a capable military force if it is directed to carry out the mission. Yet in the DRC, the people cannot understand why the most capable military force in the country is unwilling to use its firepower to implement its mandate.”

At the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday, U.N. Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the DRC, Roger Meece, underlined the priority that MONUSCO places on civilian protection. Yet he also characterised the “deterioration of the overall security situation” in parts of eastern Congo as “extremely alarming”.

Time for durable peace

The Security Council meeting was convened to discuss the Rwandan government’s continuing support for certain armed groups operating in eastern Congo.

On Wednesday, citing the unique relationship between the United States and the Rwandan government, Kabarhuza repeatedly called on the United States to step up its engagement in Congo.

For the past two decades, Washington has been a major financial backer of the Rwandan government. The United States also provides more than a quarter of the budget for MONUSCO.

The international community must call on the DRC’s neighbours, Kabarhuza said. At the same time, “America has an important role to play in the region, as it has a good relationship with the DRC government as well as with Rwanda and Uganda.”

“We are fed up with war; we are fed up with suffering. It’s time for the international community to support durable peace here.”

While Washington has made clear its determination to assist the Congolese government in fighting the Lord’s Resistance Army, which operates in four central African countries, Kabarhuza said that U.S. officials as yet have “said nothing” about the armed groups’ fuelling violence in eastern Congo, particularly the DRC-based Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a group associated with the 1994 anti-Tutsi genocide.

Following speculation that the U.S. government sought to hold up the June publication of the U.N. report for including critical reference to Rwanda’s continued support of rebels in the eastern DRC, Washington did in fact withhold a token amount of funding, around 200,000 dollars, from the Rwandan government.

But on Wednesday, the State Department’s Koutsis expressed frustration with the U.S. government’s failure so far to significantly sway the Rwandan government’s actions.

“What do you do when you have a partner and it does something that’s so against what we see as our interests and the interests of other partners and the interests of its neighbours? How do you convince that country to change its policies?” Koutsis asked.

“Sure, we’ve made some strong statements and done some actions against Rwanda, but ultimately we need to try to convince Rwanda that it’s not in its own interests to continue” to support the M23, he concluded.

The Association for Integrated Rural Development is one of a number of rural organisations on the periphery of Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which are strengthening the city’s food security while demonstrating how to maximise sustainable use of agricultural land.

Joseph Ngandungala, an agricultural engineer and one of the association’s twenty-odd members, guided IPS through a tour of ADRIM’s 25 hectare plot in Mbenkana, a settlement just west of Kinshasa.

The site was purchased from the local chief for 300 dollars in 2005. Ngandungala explained that the project encompasses livestock and aquaculture as well as agriculture. Eight hectares are given over to cassava, dwarf palms, pineapples and bananas. The grunting of pigs can be heard from another section and seven fish ponds are partly concealed by the healthy plantains growing up around them.

“Our objective is to contribute significantly to the food security of our people and to improve the living conditions of smallholder farmers in this area,” ADRIM president Justin Katumbue told IPS.

Since ADRIM began its project here on the outskirts of Kinshasa, the crop varieties planted have been carefully chosen to achieve these ends. Five hundred pineapple stems were brought from Kisangani, in northeastern DRC, back in 2008, Katumbue said. They have done well, and he expects the association will harvest around four tonnes of pineapple in November from the two hectares planted with this year’s crop.

The Kinshasa office of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has offered practical support, providing agricultural equipment and cuttings of a disease-resistant, high-yield variety of cassava known as Matuzolele.

“Since switching to this variety of cassava in 2008, we’ve harvested 10 to 15 tonnes per hectare,” said Elisabeth Mafuantala.

She told IPS that before the introduction of Matuzolele, the yields from another variety called Diaki ranged between four and seven tonnes per hectare. In 2011, the ADRIM project produced nearly 27 tonnes of cassava from a little over 2.5 hectares – worth about 1,200 dollars.

“Our harvest is made into fufu or shikwang (popular cassava dishes) or cassava chips sold in the city’s markets,” said Mafuantala.

Gerry Mantoto Manitu, director general of another local NGO, Agriculture Association for Development, believes that ADRIM has succeeded in putting in place a participatory approach to using these rural areas with the involvement of local farmers.

Josephy Muamba, a veterinarian specialising in small livestock, told IPS, “We launched our piggery with seven pigs in 2008, with two male and five female pigs again provided by FAO. Now we have 26 pigs, as the demand for their meat has increased… a kilo of pork sells for 10,200 FC (11 dollars).”

The aquaculture operation has also been growing steadily, expanding from an initial seven ponds dug in 2009 to 15 ponds today, covering an area of four hectares. Earlier in the year, 70 kilos of mature tilapia fish were harvested and sold for around 2.5 dollars per kilo in the local market.

Beyond these productive activities, ADRIM is popularising the planting of acacia trees. Katumbue explained: “Mbenkana is presently a degraded site due to the deforestation of hillsides where there was once untouched forest.”

“By growing acacias, we want to reconstitute this forest to allow residents to fertilise the soil with the trees’ leaves, as well as produce charcoal and honey,” he told IPS. 

Gilbert Mayimona, one of the Mbenkana farmers, welcomes ADRIM’s initiatives. He said that five hundred dollars of income from the project which has been allocated to the village committee has allowed members of the committee to organise themselves to sustain their development projects.

“We are aware of our responsibilities and by involving ourselves in the development programme of our country thanks to this project, our way of life is really improving,” he told IPS.

Beyond these productive activities, ADRIM is popularising certain methods of planting acacias, because according to Katumbue, “Mbenkana is at the moment a degraded site because of the deforestation that its hillsides have suffered, where once there was primary forest.

“With the cultivation of acacias, we want to restore this forest, to allow residents to fertilise the soil with its leaves, to produce charcoal and also honey,” he told IPS.

Plant diseases affecting bananas and cassava are gaining ground in two provinces in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to South Kivu’s provincial minister for agriculture, Gisèle Batembo.

The extent of the damage is visible across the province: the tell-tale withering of leaves is the sign of crops stricken by banana bacterial wilt, while many cassava fields are filled with stunted plants bearing deformed, spotted leaves that indicate the feared cassava mosaic virus.

Declining production has led to increased imports of both of these staple foods from neighbouring Rwanda, as well as a steep increase in prices over the past year, with the cost of a cluster of bananas (anywhere from 30-50 kilos) jumping from two to seven dollars in less than a year.

Three hundred thousand families grow bananas in South Kivu, and more than 900,000 households grow cassava for both their own consumption and to generate income.

Stressing the importance of these crops to food security, agronomist Daniel Rutegeza, who heads the Plant Production Unit at the provincial directorate for agriculture, said total production of bananas in South Kivu in 2009 amounted to 450,000 tonnes, from nearly 100,000 hectares of plantations. Cassava output from the 325,000 hectares under cultivation is estimated at four million tonnes.

To address the growing threat from diseases, smallholders are learning new techniques to reduce the impact, Batembo told participants at an Aug. 6 workshop in Katana, north of South Kivu’s provincial capital, Bukavu. The session was organised with the twin aims of raising awareness of and finding solutions to the rapid spread of diseases affecting the region’s two most important food crops.

At a press conference in June, the governor of South Kivu province, Marcellin Cishambo, confirmed the growing impact of disease on farmers. “Banana wilt has arrived in Kalehe, north of Bukavu, and is spreading rapidly. This illness threatens banana plantations in four of the province’s eight administrative territories,” he said.

“Kalehe Territory is the worst affected, with close to half of the plantations devastated. In Kabare – in its northern part – the incidence rate is around 25 percent, while Idjwi Territory has a rate of between 10 and 25 percent, and Walungu has a rate estimated at between 10 and 20 percent,” Cishambo said.

Batembo first raised the alarm a month earlier, in her May report on the first half of 2012. Both banana wilt and mosaic are believed to have entered the Kivu provinces from neighbouring Uganda, where farmers have been struggling to contain them for several years.

The signs of banana bacterial wilt are withered leaves and premature yellowing of the fruit, according to Professor Jean Walangululu, dean of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences at the Catholic University of Bukavu.

The province’s cassava crops, the professor told IPS, are being attacked by the East African Cassava Mosaic Virus, whose main vector is a tiny white fly of the genus Bemisia, which is extremely difficult to control. Affected crops produce spotted and deformed leaves, and suffer stunted growth and poor harvests.

Mosaic can also spread along with cuttings of infected plants. Rutegeza said the exchange of plant material between smallholders is one of the major factors in the spread of both cassava virus and banana wilt.

The disease has not spared any part of the province, Cishambo said. He said the disease first appeared in the province in 2000, and strenuous efforts have been made to fight it, particularly by stressing the importance of using healthy cuttings to plant new crops.

But, according to Cishambo, this has not prevented the devastation from expanding steadily, to the point where it poses a serious threat to food security throughout the province. He said that another disease, known as cassava brown streak, has also been detected. But while the authorities are monitoring the presence of this disease – which is even more harmful than mosaic – its spread has not yet reached worrying proportions.

The governor of South Kivu has issued ten key regulations to stem the advance of these diseases, most importantly a ban on the circulation or introduction of banana or cassava cuttings into South Kivu from neighbouring Rwanda or Uganda, or from North Kivu, which is also struggling with the same problems.

Trade and transport of such plant material is only permitted when it’s accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate issued by the Inspector of Agriculture indicating it has been cleared as safe and healthy by the National Seed Certification Service (SENASEM).

The technicians at SENASEM recommend using fire or bleach to disinfect farm implements after each diseased cassava tuber is dug out of the soil. They also advise greater efforts to prevent stray animals from wandering around in banana plantations, and to make sure that any sale or exchange of cassava cuttings is done with the express authorisation of SENASEM and the National Institute for Agricultural Research.

FAO is experimenting with a new approach to containing banana wilt which has already been applied in Uganda. According to Rutegeza, this treatment requires producers to remove male buds from the banana plants every two days. In April, some 150 banana producers at Bweremana, in North Kivu’s Masisi Territory, were trained in this approach, he said.

Mike Robson, a specialist in plant diseases with FAO who has facilitated technical exchanges between Uganda and DRC, said that the first results from this trial are expected in October 2012, before their eventual introduction in South Kivu.

Nzanzu Kasuvita, provincial minister for agriculture in North Kivu, recognised that there is still work to do, particularly in educating all actors and partners in the struggle for food security.

The war between the DRC’s regular army and the mutinous soldiers belonging to Mouvement du 23 Mars (M23), which has affected some parts of North Kivu since April, risks hindering the resolution of the problem of plant diseases which could threaten food security, he said.

Governments and civil society organisations in Central Africa are slowly developing strategies in response to global warming. But specialists say the steps being taken seem hesitant in the face of emerging realities.

Forest elephants in the Mbeli River, Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, Congo. Central African countries are developing strategies against climate change. Credit: Thomas Breuer

For some time now, smallholder farmers in many parts of Africa, but particularly in the Congo basin, have noted with alarm a slump in farm output that can be linked to climate change.

“Before 2010, we would harvest, 1,200 kilogrammes per hectare of Kasaï 1 variety of maize, for example, or 1,000 kilos of the jl24 variety of groundnut. But beginning in 2010, yields per hectare fell to 600 kg for groundnuts and 700 kg for maize,” says a worried Jean-Baptiste Mbwengele, president of a production and sales cooperative which groups forty smallholder organisations in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Mbwengele explains that the drop in production has been caused by disruptions to the agricultural calendar, due to both unusually heavy or prolonged rainy periods which make fungal, bacterial and viral plant diseases worse, and to drought – which he linked to the clearing of forests.

In partnership with the United Nations Development Programme, the DRC has initiated PANA-ASA – the Programme of Action for Adaptation and Food Security – designed to counter the threat that climate change poses to agricultural output and food security.

“This project will facilitate access to genetic material (improved seed) better adapted to the anticipated climatic conditions as well as the adoption of better practices for water management and soil fertility,” explains Jean Ndembo, the national coordinator for PANA-ASA.

Reducing deforestation is also a necessity, both to bolster the resilience of local farmers and to contribute to global mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions in the form of carbon stored in healthy forests.

For several years, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has been carrying out reforestation programmes as part of its Agricultural and Rural Sector Rehabilitation Support Programme, known as PARSAR. Supported by the African Development Bank, PARSAR has reforested some 600 hectares in the western provinces of Bandundu and Bas-Congo, planting 2.2 million trees, mostly acacias, according to the programme’s coordinator, Albert Luzayadio.

Smaller areas have also been rehabilitated by PARSAR in the east, in Orientale Province, where 44 hectares have been planted in Kisangani; and in the southeastern province of Katanga, 25 hectares in Pweto have been reforested.

The programme works in concert with civil society. Célestin Awiwi Mimbu, the national coordinator of non-governmental organisation Action de Reboisement au Congo, says his organisation has planted more than 900,000 trees across the Democratic Republic of Congo, mainly fast-growing eucalyptus and acacias – the latter tree’s leaves offer the additional benefit of fertilising the soil.

Mimbu explains that besides acacia and eucalyptus, umbrella trees – Maesopsis eminiii, a tall, fast- growing species widely found across tropical Africa – and various fruit trees have been planted at several sites in the southwestern DRC province of Bandundu, including 34 hectares at Ndunga and Ngulambondo, and another 56 hectares at Masimanimba.

“We have managed to carry out this reforestation work since the start of 2011, thanks to the National Forestry Fund established by the government. The aim is to build up resilience, support green growth, and fight global warming, which has many negative impacts,” he told IPS.

But he regrets that no budget was allocated for the care of these trees once planted, and some have been lost due to bushfires. Mimbu’s NGO is a member of the Natural Resources Network (la Réseau Ressource Naturelles), an umbrella organisation for civil society across Central Africa which works for the defence and promotion of better governance of forest resources.

“Armed conflict remains one of the major challenges in adapting to climate change in the Congo Basin. In the provinces of Maniema and North and South Kivu, in the eastern DRC, which have been plagued by conflict since 1997, shelling by armed groups has caused the degradation of forests, destroying soil fertility with the chemicals found in artillery shells,” said Corneille Lebu, a Congolese ecologist.

“The shelling cuts the leaves which in principle absorb carbon, leaving the soil bare, leading to the leaching (of nutrients) and destroying micro-organisms. There is a marked acceleration in the loss of moisture from the soil and the rapid release of greenhouse gases,” Lebu told IPS. “Since 1997, conflict in DRC have resulted in more than five million deaths.”

Lebu believes that for adaptation measures to succeed, it is essential to bring peace to war-ravaged zones, and to restore the soil using manure.”

Cameroon, the DRC and the Central African Republic have all begun implementing their National Adaptation Programmes, according to a 2010 report of COFCCA, the Congo Basin Forests and Climate Change Adaptation project.

Launched in Yaoundé, Cameroon, in 2008, COFCCA aims to identify and set joint priorities at the national and regional levels for forests and forest services that are vulnerable to climate change. The project also supports the sharing of experiences on adaptation strategies for a transfrontier resource such as the Congo Basin forests.

Elsewhere in the region, in 2010 the Gabonese government established an agency for research and observation of the climate from space, involving a tripartite accord with the French Institute of Research for Development (IRD) and the Brazilian Institute for Space Research.

Gabon has set up a station to receive satellite images, with the primary task of monitoring the state of health of tropical forests of the Congo Basin – 1.8 million square kilometres of forest, and constituting a “green lung” for the planet, second in size only to the Amazon.

In Burundi, deforestation is being countered by planting jatropha. Since 2010, the shrub has been planted on dozens of hectares in the Rukoko conservation area, which lies on the country’s border with DRC. The work has been done by the Tubane Association of Gikuzi with support from the Congo Basin Forest Fund.

A second phase of the project will be supported by the African Development Bank; the aim is to simultaneously combat poverty and protect the environment, with an integrated plan for exploitation of jatropha helping to bring an end to the present “anarchic” clearing of forest in the Rukoko Nature Reserve. The jatropha will reduce the impact of forest cover already lost while reducing pressure to cut down even more trees. People living in areas adjacent to the park will gain from the harvest and sale of raw jatropha seeds – which yield a valuable oil – as well as local production of soap and fertiliser from the seeds.

It’s in line with the government’s commitment to limit the impact of climatic changes due to deforestation, which is a growing problem Burundi. In November 2011, the country’s first vice president, Thérence Sinuguruza, called on the Environment Ministry to draft a law forbidding the unregulated cutting down of trees.

But even taken together, the actions of governments and civil society in Central Africa so far are inadequate, as they have not yet produced the desired results, says Odon Munsadi, a Congolese ecologist. “Communities in our respective countries are not yet applying agro-ecological practices, and the effects of climate change remain unchanged.”

“Sub-Saharan Africa produces less than four percent of greenhouse gases, this is much less than North America, Europe, Asia and other industrialised regions,” according to experts. But, “Africa is already suffering the effects of climate change will only suffer more in the years to come.”

* This article is one of a series supported by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network.

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