Governments and investors are seeking minerals, timber and oil in the Congo Basin to fuel the global economy and the green transition. However, communities that have lived in the world’s second-largest rainforest for generations are paying the highest price for extraction, according to a new report published ahead of the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil. COP30 is expected to address, among other issues, the management and financing of tropical rainforests, which are vital for climate stability.
The new report, released by the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities (GATC) and Earth Insight, details how extractive industries are converging on Indigenous and local community lands across the world’s major tropical forests. In the Congo Basin, the planet’s largest forest carbon sink, 38% of community forests are threatened by oil and gas blocks, 42% by mining and 6% with logging, according to the report.
These overlapping pressures are degrading fragile ecosystems and threatening Indigenous livelihoods. In the TRIDOM landscape spanning Cameroon, Gabon and the Republic of Congo, more than half of community forests overlap with logging concessions, the report notes. Across western Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), oil licenses threaten to encroach on 99% of community forests, including the Cuvette Centrale peatlands, home to 30 billion tons of stored carbon, vital to global climate stability.
Industrial exploitation tells only part of the story; livelihoods are also impacted. “Our peoples have protected these forests for generations … yet our rights remain fragile,” Joseph Itongwa of the Network of Indigenous and Local Populations for the Sustainable Management of Forest Ecosystems in Central Africa, a member organization with the GATC, states in the report. “If the world is truly committed to climate justice, it must support and finance the protection of the Congo Region through the leadership of its original custodians. We are not the beneficiaries—we are the architects of a different future.”
The report also highlights the growing economic complexity surrounding resource extraction. Governments often see mining and hydrocarbons as engines of growth and fiscal stability, while companies promise jobs and development. But corruption and weak governance often prevent communities from seeing significant benefits. A 2020 Mongabay report established that poor governance and corruption are considered the biggest obstacles to protecting DRC forests.
The report also offers signs of progress. The DRC’s 2022 Pygmy Law was designed for the “Promotion and Protection of the Rights of the Indigenous Pygmy Peoples,” recognizing their civic and land rights. In Cameroon, the NGO Ajemalibu Self Help works with local councils and communities to map forest lands, blending traditional knowledge with modern conservation tools — bridging the gap between authorities and forest communities.
To build on such progress, the GATC urges climate finance to flow directly to communities, circumventing multilateral development banks. It also calls for the enforcement of free, prior and informed consent in all projects to support local biodiversity and social peace.
Banner image: of a mandrill in Gabon by Rhett Ayers Butler.
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