Floating cities of logs: can the ‘lungs of Africa’ survive its exploitation?

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“You can’t be scared of the storms,” says Jean de Dieu Mokuma as the sun sets on the Congo River behind him. “With the current, once your voyage has begun, there is no turning back.” Mokuma, along with his wife Marie-Therese and their two young children, is piloting a cargo of timber downstream lashed on to a precarious raft and tied to a canoe.

A young girl and a woman with a baby tied to her back stand on a raft made of three logs lashed together, with a tent over one end.

Two women sit opposite each other on chairs perched on huge logs, a brazier between them

Many rows of logs tied together with gaps between each log, floating on the water.

They are stranded overnight outside the chaotic trading town of Mbandaka, where port officials have removed components of Mokuma’s outboard motor as assurance that taxes of dubious legality will be paid. If the family overcome the corruption and river currents and arrive with their raft intact, they stand to make $300 (£220) from selling the wood to a lumber mill in Kinshasa.

“I would stay a fisherman,” says Mokuma. “But there is no way to make money. In Kinshasa, I can win what we need to survive.”

Several canoes speeding over the water a short distance from shore

Mokuma is one of millions who depend on the waters and resources of the Congo River basin to survive. Stretching from the mountains of the Albertine Rift to the Atlantic coast, the 2,900-mile (4,700km)-long river and its tributaries sprawl into six nations, nourishing vast networks of rainforests and swamps.

The Congo basin is the second largest rainforest on Earth and traps 1.5bn tonnes of carbon emissions a year. It is also one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet and includes more than 10,000 plant species, more than 400 mammal species, 1,000 bird species, and 700 fish species.

An aerial view showing islands and patches of forest separated by large expanses of water

A view from behind a man in a green beret and green uniform who is holding a machete in his raised right arm to cut through dense foliage.

Over half of its forests are found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where these ecosystems are vulnerable to the pressures of a rapidly increasing population and poorly regulated exploitation of the land.

Erick Bayo is a ranger at the Bombo-Lumene nature reserve, a protected space that, he says, contains 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) of the last intact forests in the vicinity of Kinshasa. Venturing into the valleys of the reserve with Bayo and a squad of ragged Congolese army troops reveals clearings of felled trees and swathes of ashen earth blackened from the illegal production of charcoal. Hundreds of bags ready for transport are found abandoned next to the furnace pits.

An expanse of forest with a winding line of darker trees following the curve of the river.

A hillside where trees have been felled and the ground blackened by fires.

A man in a green uniform and beret leans over a fire that has been set in the middle of white bags of charcoal.

Men wearing green uniforms and carrying guns lay fires ready to burn sacks of charcoal.

Men wearing green uniforms and carrying guns look over piles of wood and charcoal as they start to burn.

“There was fighting here so the community fled,” says Bayo. “They wouldn’t have left their charcoal otherwise.” The patrol set about destroying the abandoned stocks – exhausting work under the midday sun. Kinshasa, with a population of over 18 million and rising, is a city with an inexhaustible demand for cooking charcoal, a cheap alternative to electricity for the estimated 75% of the Congolese population who survive on less than $2.15 a day.

Smoke drifts through the air above a hut and into tall palm trees

The discovery in recent years of a vast peatland that lies underneath the swamp forests of the Congo basin has reinforced the need to protect the region. Across DRC and its neighbour the Republic of the Congo on the western bank of the river these peatland swamps, known as the Cuvette Centrale, contain 30bn tonnes of trapped carbon.

People carrying poles and woven baskets on their backs walk through dense forest.

Leaves hang over water filled with lily pads

The village of Lokolama, in the DRC’s Équateur province, sits in the middle of this ecosystem, which was extensively mapped in 2017 by researchers from the UK. The Cuvette Centrale drew global attention for a controversial plan by the DRC government to auction oil and gas drilling rights across the basin region.

With the auctions cancelled in 2024, much of the peatland still rests outside legally protected areas.

A strip of red dirt road through Lokolama village, surrounded by dense, dark green forest.

A community gathering outdoors in the village of Lokolama.

“It was new for us to discover the word peatland, and learn that our land lets us all breathe clean oxygen,” says Jean-Pierre Ahetoa, Lokolama’s village leader. “We always hunted in the forest for antelopes, and searched for honey.” The village has an informal approach to conservation in the absence of legal guidance. “We know how to divide the land, we have left some for fields and construction, but the rest we leave intact,” he says.

A woman stands on her veranda in the evening. Above her lightning streaks across a purple sky framed by silhouetted palm trees.

From the banks of the river close to Lokolama, watching the traffic on the Congo makes clear the challenge of conserving this vital resource.

Vast barges, which hold hundreds of logs, motor downstream. The ships resemble floating cities. Traders and boat crew camp out for days and weeks, buying rations and cooking charcoal from riverside communities who paddle their canoes out onto the river to barter.

Large numbers of long boats moored around a busy waterfront

A canoe bearing two dogs, a chicken and a package wrapped in palm leaves is close to the camera, while another can be seen further out on th ewater.

On arrival in the port of Kinkole, outside Kinshasa, where the vast river narrows into a series of impassable rapids, workers scramble into the water to hitch logs to tractors. Traders in colourful dresses keep a careful watch on the melee as they select which cargo to buy. These supply chains are opaque, with recent research suggesting that most forest concessions in DRC are operating illegally.

Piles of logs and lumber on a huge plot of land, with smoke rising over buildings just behind them

A view over a JCB driver’s shoulder of piles of wood in a lumber yard

Workers strip bark from logs at a lumber mill in the port of Kinkole.

Logs are cut into planks at a lumber mill in the port of Kinkole.

African woman stands in front of piles of logs waiting to be processed at a lumber mill in the port of Kinkole.

Between 2001 and 2024 DRC lost 21m hectares (52m acres) of trees; the future of the “lungs of Africa” rests on whether conservation can outpace this exploitation.