ProjetEquateur

It's difficult to make generalizations about the people in Congo as the DRC is approximately the size of western Europe, and the province we work in, Equateur, is about the size of France. We see huge cultural differences between the northern and southern inhabitants of the province, but it is the poorest province in the DRC. This means that they have a difficult time accessing information and most people have a very low level of education. However most people are conscious of the impacts of climate change, they just don't necessarily understand the underlying scientific causes of the issue (i.e. CO2 emissions). The communities we've worked with are aware of long-term weather pattern changes, such as changes in rainfall, and we work with them to explain what is causing these changes and what they can do to help preserve their forest and resources in the long term. In northern Equateur, much of the forest has already been exploited, so people are more aware of the issue there simply because they have personal experiences with water shortages, firewood shortages, soil fertility loss and the decrease in accessible non-timber forest products (which include medicinal plants, edible insects like caterpillars, bush meat, etc). In the southern part of the province, where we primarily work, people are less aware because their forest has been exploited much less.

There are many different definitions of sustainable development coming from various academic disciplines with different assumptions about the relationship between society and nature. These ideas are constantly evolving in light of new evidence and contextual crises and mainstream emphasis is in the context of climate, economy and persistent poverty.

Deforestation is caused by humans trying to maintain their lives and livelihoods through a process of using and converting forested lands to provide food, fuel and fiber. In the context of less developed economies that are heavily reliant on agriculture and natural resource use with high number of rural poor, poverty or the process of trying to get out of it can be a direct cause of deforestation. This is particularly true in the DRC where much of the deforestation currently is caused by small holder agricultural practices. In Equateur Province in central DRC over the last decade around 1 million hectares (a little less than 2.5 million acres) of forest have been cleared for small scale agriculture, yet the socio-economic condition of people has changed little in that same period. If this continues unchecked in the face of growing numbers of people, the forests will continue to be lost and at a provincial scale the environment will no longer be able to support them. Considering the impacts of this more broadly, this means that we will release more greenhouse gases (exacerbating climate change), which in turn will cause greater challenges in terms of local risk and resilience to erratic seasonal cycles. Forest cover loss will affect the hydrology of the Congo River basin which will cause other problems throughout the watershed etc. Such development in the long term will be unsustainable, particularly in the face of limited technological innovation and uptake to cope with the changes.

Poverty and environmental degradation are inextricably interlinked, you cannot resolve one without addressing the other. Poor people trying to survive from one season the next do not have the luxury of thinking long term about how their actions today affect their case of survival in the future, even if the consequences are understood. Development interventions need to focus on helping poor people better use their available resources without the need to keep deforesting. For example, agricultural production is highly inefficient compared to 4 decades ago e.g. average production per hectare of land is declining, even though the total number of hectares under production has increased. The factors involved in making such changes are complex and take many years to change at scale, including issues related to ownership and control of land (governance), how markets function, availability of land, labor and capital and ‘know how”, functioning of markets to sell produce and buy inputs and not least of all, peace and stability.

Funds are needed to make these changes and that funding needs to come from the nations that have principally caused global warming. Now that industrialized nations are feeling the effects of climate change, keeping tropical forests intact is commonly viewed as a benefit by them and they are making public funding available to try to achieve the necessary changes. Increasingly “climate justice” is a concept used to understand global warming as an ethical and political issue and considering how its causes and effects relate to concepts of justice, particularly environmental justice and social justice. This can mean examining political and economic systems and issues such as equality, human rights, collective rights, and historical responsibility in relation to climate change.

It’s just the beginning, and I (Glenn) firmly believe that we will make a difference. Our project aims to assist the people who are responsible for these resources be able to better manage them through research, education and training. DRC’s forests are some of the least studied and understood from any perspective whether that be ecological, social, or economic. The recent war has destroyed most of the national infrastructure and depleted the nation of much of its knowledge base. The impacts of our work are not going to be felt in the short term. We need to ask this question again in 20 years!

We don't work directly with mining companies (we work in the northwestern part of the country and most of the mines are located in the east/south) but our work (the data, methodologies we develop, and the activities we test) could be used in the context of helping communities have a say in what happens to mineral resources on their customary lands (negotiating with companies and sharing compensation equitably). The communities we work with are more impacted by illegal logging, both "artisanal" and semi-industrial.

Look at your consumption. Think about how the goods you consume are acquired and produced and what effect that has on the environment. There's no silver bullet, however think seriously about what your actual needs are. Consume less meat and eat local and seasonal products as much as possible. Try to purchase Forest Stewardship Council certified products if you need to buy something new, but also consider re-using and recycling. Crops like soy, palm oil, coffee and tea are often produced on cleared forest land, so think about limiting your consumption of these products.