‘In 10 years, we might not have forests’: DRC struggles to halt charcoal trade – a photo essay

theguardian.com:

Every few seconds a handful of reddish clay is scraped out of a bucket, rolled briskly into a ball, coated in charcoal dust and left in the sun to dry. For the past three years, Nzigire Ntavuna, 39, has been making these balls on the outskirts of Kahuzi-Biega national park, in the rainforest in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to burn as fuel. The little briquettes represent a tiny glimmer of hope here, at the centre of a multilayered threat to this forest and the people who live in it.

Clockwise from top left: Biologist Cédric Muliri shows a fuel ball and soap made by villagers in Chibuga as an alternative income to charcoal; clay balls dry on the floor; Nzigire Ntavuna at her home in Chibuga

Ntavuna lives about 2 miles (4km) outside the park, in Chibuga village. The Batwa people have lived in the region for millennia. Since the 1970s, they have been caught up in a cycle of violence in the forests, which is home to the endangered Grauer’s, or eastern lowland, gorilla. The tensions deepened in recent weeks after a German-funded investigation into alleged massacres in the park was accused of covering up accounts of rapes and killings of Batwa people, formerly known as Pygmies, by park rangers.

The rainforest of the Congo River basin covers 178m hectares (440m acres) across six countries. It absorbs about 4% of global annual carbon emissions, sustains rainfall as far away as Egypt, and is home to 80 million people – and a vast spectrum of rare animals, insects and flora. Its preservation is deemed key in the fight against global heating.

Kahuzi-Biega national park showing, from top left, mountains; a silverback Grauer’s gorilla; members of the Batwa community; and a Batwa man making charcoal

But DRC has one of