In twenty years, the DRC has seen the disappearance of more than 5 million hectares of forest cover and a still unknown number of species in one of the planet's last reserves of plant and animal biodiversity. According to forecasts by Greenpeace, it could lose up to 40% of its forests by 2050.

As the fourth forest country in the world and second for primary humid forests behind Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo now has 155 million hectares of tropical forest, i.e., two-thirds of its area and more than half of the immense Congo Basin forest, which covers six African countries.

The people living near the parks and in the forests, caught between the twin grip of precariousness and insecurity, survive as best they can in an environment ravaged by greed but also by need. Until when will the riches of the Congo be a curse for its inhabitants?

Guerchom Ndebo