Corruption and Misappropriation Exacerbate Forest Ecosystem Degradation in DRC

This project aims to show that corruption and misappropriation of public funds amplifies forest degradation and threatens the residents of natural resource exploitation sites in DRC.

Indeed, companies that exploit natural resources under the DRC's mining code and forestry code pay a reforestation tax. In principle, paying companies finance reforestation operations to offset environmentally damaging projects. However, there is no evidence that the money has been redirected to affected communities, as RIN Fellow Didier Makal observes in the Katanga mining region. Tax-funded restoration projects are unknown even to the services that are supposed to implement them, such as the Provincial Coordination of the Environment of the province of Upper Katanga.