KANYARUCHINYA, Democratic Republic of Congo — Amid a circle of spectators, a troupe of performers takes center stage. Songs resound, accompanied by the beat of drums and lively dances. A large banner carries a powerful message: “The future of our environment depends on our behavior today.” The drumming soon gives way to a play performed in Swahili. We’re in Kanyaruchinya, in the Nyiragongo territory of North Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Some 200,000 people have sought refuge in the southern part of the province, fleeing a conflict that has been raging since 2021. “We work to raise awareness around Virunga National Park, particularly in displaced persons’ camps,” Ghislain Kabuyaya, a consultant with the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature (known by its French acronym ICCN) and coordinator of these theatrical performances, tells Mongabay by phone. “We talk to them about the dangers of deforestation, and the risks of cutting down trees to make makala.” In Lingala, one of the DRC’s official languages, makala means charcoal. In North Kivu, as in other parts of the continent, makala is made by small-scale producers using freshly cut trees, which are slowly charred for almost a week in makeshift ovens. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), energy derived from wood accounts for 93% of total energy consumption in the DRC, far ahead of petroleum products and electricity, which each account for 3.5%. This reliance is problematic, as producing charcoal requires extensive logging; it takes up to 10 kilos…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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