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A direct response to deforestation driven by charcoal production for the Bukavu market, this project restores biodiversity in the community forests bordering the Itombwe Nature Reserve and returns those spaces to the Balega Indigenous communities.

The unregulated felling of trees in Mwenga's community forests to supply Bukavu's charcoal market has caused significant destruction of forest biodiversity. For local residents, the heaviest consequence is the disappearance of edible caterpillars, on which Indigenous young people and women directly depend — compounded by climate disruption, food insecurity and deepening poverty.

A land injustice at the root

Mwenga's Indigenous communities were expelled from their traditional forest when it became the Itombwe Nature Reserve in 2006. That exclusion severely damaged their living conditions, worsening food insecurity, poverty and discrimination. Forced to fall back on community forests, they found already heavily degraded environments stripped of biodiversity — while the growing market for timber, charcoal and firewood accelerated the destruction further.

PIFEVA's analysis identifies four root causes: poor forest governance, slash-and-burn agriculture, the combination of poverty, population pressure and mining, and the unregulated cutting of trees for firewood and charcoal.

The aim: restore and return

The project set out to restore biodiversity in community forests and enable Indigenous communities to reclaim them, by planting edible caterpillar host trees in the groupings bordering the Reserve. The end goal is to empower Indigenous young people and women through the recovery and sound management of biodiversity — in particular the production and sale of edible caterpillars as a source of income.

What was delivered

PIFEVA mobilised 313 Indigenous young people and women across the villages of Ngambwa, Kasaga, Kanana, Nisege, Kiliungu, Bungalama and Lolwe. Activities covered the identification and propagation of Indigenous forest species hosting edible caterpillars, training of Indigenous nursery workers, the creation of seven nurseries and the organisation of three major reforestation campaigns. 470 hectares were replanted with Indigenous forest species across seven community forest blocks.

Indigenous forest monitoring committees were established and training in the sound management of caterpillar host trees was delivered to enable income-generating activities. Seven groups of young people and women received support to develop crop and livestock activities while the planted trees reach maturity — a concrete answer to the gap between the timescale of a forest and that of daily food needs.

THE PROJECT IN NUMBERS

470 ha replanted with Indigenous species

7 community forest blocks

7 Indigenous nurseries created

313 Indigenous young people and women mobilised

3 reforestation campaigns organised

7 villages covered