"The DRC government hired the conservation worker Kim Rebholz in 2022 to safeguard the Mangrove Marine park, an internationally recognised nature reserve on the country's tiny coastline. The Congo basin rainforest, to the east, is the largest rainforest after the Amazon. Rebholz hoped to extend the protected area across the region. I was very hopeful that we could do a good job, he told the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa."
"So Rebholz was shocked when, patrolling the park a few months into the job, he came across what appeared to be an industrial-sized palm oil plantation, and an expanse of tens of thousands of palm trees. Rebholz says he asked his deputies: What exactly is this? and they told him that it belonged to the company of the former president Joseph Kabila,"
Protected coastal mangroves and marine habitat in the DRC are legally designated and internationally recognised, hosting manatees, endangered sea turtles and the Congo river mouth. Conservation staff were hired to safeguard and extend protections but encountered large-scale industrial palm plantations within park boundaries. Parts of the reserve are subject to strict rules, though exemptions can be granted for certain people. The plantation observed covered more than 400 hectares and is visible from space, and local informants attributed ownership to a company linked to the former president. People exposing unlawful ownership and profiteering have faced threats, violence and rape.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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