Until recently, unending wars and conflicts have kept the devastating deforestation in the isolated yet ecologically important Congo Basin out of the limelight. But the impacts are now slowly being revealed thanks to a data-journalism project between Code for Africa (CfA) and environmental reporting experts, Oxpeckers and InfoCongo.
Since November 2020, journalists drawn from Cameroon, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Rwanda have been highlighting the dire state of the fragile ecosystem, under the twin pressure from renewed exploitation by illegal loggers out for precious mature wood, and from the growing local populations seeking means to earn a livelihood.
The stories, which echo similar threats and struggles to save sensitive ecosystems around the world, have been made possible partly through new storytelling techniques such as drones. In Cameroon, recurrent fighting has pushed communities into forests which has resulted in increased pressure on wildlife and biodiversity. According to Global Forest Watch, the country lost 201,000 hectares of natural forest in 2020 alone, or around one tenth of Rwanda’s land area.
The situation is replicated in most of the countries which share the Congo Basin ecosystem: In DRC, where gold mining is killing forests and communities, in Cameroon, where logging of high value timber is harming indigenous forest communities, and in northern Uganda, where charcoal business threatens tree species.
Despite the enormity of the problem, relentless efforts by communities are slowly turning the tide.
As Uganda’s population has risen from about 10 million in 1969 through to 35 million in 2014, the country’s forest cover has declined from 5 million hectares in the 1990s to just a little over 2 million hectares in 2015, a loss of land area roughly equivalent to the size of Rwanda. Environmental activists and community pressure groups are now racing to stem illegal logging at Zoka Central Forest Reserve and dozens of other forests in the country.
In Rwanda, a small group of women have sparked a social movement towards conservation through planting trees. In 2019, the women, who also engage in environmental activism, planted more than 8,000 trees, although progress has been slowed down by the pandemic.
Stories can impact public debate
Jacopo Ottaviani, Chief Data Officer at CfA, believes stories like these can impact the public debate around global issues in Africa. “Precise, factual data-driven journalism helps understand the magnitude of the problem, and guides sustainable solutions to develop local economies in countries like DRC, where millions of people live in poverty,” he said.
Over the past 10 months, 11 training sessions were facilitated for more than 35 journalists in Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya and Rwanda with funding support from the Global Forest Watch (GFW) and the World Research Institute (WRI). To accommodate the pan-African attendees, three of these sessions were in French, and eight in English.
These sessions have given the cohort of journalists skills to find deforestation data, create data visualisations, map and analyse satellite data, discover insights and stories in data, and work with spreadsheets using GFW data.
For some, the GFW datasets presented an alternative source of information, especially on statistics. “I will be using the platform to review the latest datasets for my stories on Uganda’s forestry,” one of the journalists remarked.
For others, the training was a wake-up call to expand their environmental reporting. “As a result of the fellowship, I have challenged myself to write one article per month using GFW data, with themes relating to either deforestation or the destruction of the environment, with emphasis on the consequences,” one of the trainees said.
CfA and its partners further mentored 12 journalists to complete investigations and tell data-driven stories on critical deforestation issues in the region. As a result, more than 198 million hectares of land were monitored in the Congo Basin, 21 deforestation-related datasets were visualised using Flourish studio, 12 stories with critical deforestation insights were written and published in partnership with 15 media houses across Africa as follows:
Publishing Partner: The Independent Uganda
Fellow: Ronald Musoke
Title: Race on to restore Uganda’s forests
Publishing Partner: Nile Post
Fellow: Fatuma Nakiwala
Title: Opinion: Bugoma forest under depletion
Publishing Partner: Rwanda News
Fellow: Annonciata Byukusenge
Title: Rwandan women embrace forest conservation policy
Publishing Partner: Vox Populi
Fellow: Benedict Asiimwe
Title: Charcoal business threatens northern Uganda’s tree species
Publishing Partner: Kilimo Tv
Fellow: Elisé Sawasawa
Title: A look at deforestation in Nyiragongo territory Nord Kivu DRCongo- the report is in Kiswahili:
Publishing Partner: Cameroon News Agency
Fellow: Che Azenyui Bruno
Title: Recurrent fighting further endangers country’s wildlife resources
Publishing Partners: InfoCongo, Cameroon Intelligence Report and Enviro News
Fellow: Francis Annagu
Title: In Cameroon illegal logging of high-value timber harms indigenous forest communities.
Publishing Partner: InfoCongo
Fellow: Madeleine Ngeunga
Title: In the Congo rainforest, gold mining is killing forests and communities
Publishing Partner: URN: Uganda Radio Network
Fellow: Musingusi Blanshe
Title: Deforestation: What Can Charcoal Burning Save?
Publishing Partner: Sciences Watch and Agency Cameroun Presse
Fellow: Nicole Ricci Minyem
Publishing Partners: Environmental Intelligence Medium and Cambridge Conservation Forum Fellow: Linda Amaya
Title: The journey to sustainability: how satellite imagery can support forest resource governance in DRC.
Publishing Partner: Ejoheza
Fellow: Espoir Iradukunda
Title: Regional deforestation affects lakes as their water levels increase
Despite the impacts of the projects listed above, a lot of work is still required to address deforestation challenges. CfA, as part of its Lungs of the Earth initiative, will continue to engage with stakeholders and journalists in the region to curate impact-driven programmes to effectively contribute to environmental reporting and protection.
Code for Africa (CfA) is the continent’s largest network of civic technology and data journalism labs, with teams in 21 countries. CfA builds digital democracy solutions that give citizens unfettered access to actionable information that empowers them to make informed decisions, and that strengthens civic engagement for improved public governance and accountability. This includes building infrastructure like the continent’s largest open data portals at openAFRICA and sourceAFRICA. CfA incubates initiatives as diverse as the africanDRONE network, the PesaCheck fact-checking initiative, the sensors.AFRICA air quality sensor network and the research and analysis programme Civic Signal.
CfA also manages the African Network of Centres for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR), which gives the continent’s best muckraking newsrooms the latest possible forensic data tools, digital security and whistleblower encryption to help improve their ability to tackle crooked politicians, organised crime and predatory big business. CfA runs one of Africa’s largest skills development initiatives for digital journalists, and seed funds cross-border collaboration.