00:00The forests of the DRC are highly coveted by logging firms.
00:05But in 2023, after four years of red tape,
00:08villages in the Yangyongo community secured official rights to 11,000 hectares in Toposho province,
00:15land they can now protect themselves even as conflict grips the wider region.
00:23The conflict didn't have much scope before.
00:25It became more serious and more widely known when a company called Cap Congo came to buy the forest.
00:31Which means that now, if we go back, we will have nowhere to farm.
00:35We have the impression that it is this company that used the local people to kill each other
00:40while they themselves profit from the forest.
00:47While the DRC officially recognizes indigenous communities' rights to their ancestral lands,
00:53corruption and backroom land deals often leave those rights powerless
00:57when new concessions are handed out.
01:04Concession holders were coming from all sides to invade our forest and seize it by force.
01:10Those who have people outside will come at any time to threaten our forest.
01:15And the second thing is the conflict we recently experienced here,
01:19the Mboli-Langola conflict.
01:23It was a conflict that very nearly tore our community apart.
01:31Since 2014, the so-called community forestry in the DRC
01:35lets villages claim up to 50,000 hectares if they protect it sustainably.
01:42The code stipulates that the community is responsible for a portion of land.
01:46The Congolese state found that its approach was not working well,
01:50meaning that the approach based on specifications,
01:53customary rights, and so on.
01:56With both industrial and small-scale logging operators dealing in timber,
02:00it was not working.
02:02And the state decided to grant the community
02:04indefinite management of the forest.
02:12Creating the community forest took years of negotiations
02:15as villages and local landowners
02:18worked to hammer out and fix exact boundaries of their concessions.
02:22With Jesus
02:22First, поэтому
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