Violent reprisals after DRC whistleblowers discover profiteering in protected land

Environmentalists seeking to end logging, smuggling and pollution in DRC's Mangrove Marine park faced threats, violence and rape

People who have tried to expose unlawful ownership and profit-making from protected land in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have faced threats, violence and rape, an investigation has found.

The DRC government hired the conservation worker Kim Rebholz in 2022 to safeguard the Mangrove Marine park, an internationally recognised nature reserve on the country's tiny coastline. The Congo basin rainforest, to the east, is the largest rainforest after the Amazon.