Over the past eight months, Mongabay has conducted an in-depth investigation into the Sangha Likouala REDD+ initiative.
Environmentalist Justin Landry Chekoua says he’s shocked by images of century-old trees uprooted and rivers contaminated in the northern Sangha region of the Republic of Congo. Mongabay had taken photos of an open-pit gold mine within the boundaries of an area designated as part of the Sangha Likouala REDD+ program.
“Looking at it … this is a mining operation with no regard for sustainability,” Chekoua says.
Over the past eight months, Mongabay has conducted an in-depth investigation into the Sangha Likouala REDD+ initiative. We traveled to the Sangha region, reviewed hundreds of official documents, and uncovered a troubling reality: since the REDD+ project’s launch in 2020, the country’s mining minister, Pierre Oba, has issued at least 79 semi-industrial gold mining and exploration permits. This marks a sharp increase from the period between 2017 and 2020, when only eight mining permits were officially issued in the same region, according to a Ministry of Finance report.
By definition, a REDD+ project is designed to reduce deforestation and forest degradation. Yet in the Sangha region, 14% of the territory has already been marked out for gold exploration. This doesn’t account for permits to search for the other minerals, such as iron, that are mined on an industrial scale in the area.
The consequences for the region are severe, impacting both the environment and the lives of local residents.
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