Identification of ecologically fragile areas prioritized for forest conservation and restoration in Mambasa and Mongbwalu sector, Ituri province, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The restoration of degraded ecosystems is an essential activity to achieve environmental and ecological justice. The general approach is to implement actions aimed at conserving intact ecosystems as they provide ecosystem services that are not fully recoverable upon destruction and to restore degraded ecological and ecosystem systems because degradation is taking place faster than recovery. An ecosystem is defined as restored when following a self organized ecological trajectory (change over time in ecological characteristics) in line with the desired or reference ecosystem.

Implementing conservation and restoration projects by evaluating them only from a biological perspective is not enough, as they must ensure the inclusion of local communities through a rights-based approach. Environmental and ecological justice focus on the intersections between the systemic exploitation of humans and the natural world; this includes inequities in the access and use of natural resources and in the distribution of environmental harms (by race, class, gender, among many). Furthermore, land rights for women in Africa go beyond property rights and touch on often sensitive issues around different tenure systems (statutory, customary and religious), land- based wealth, power and social relations that give or take away their right to access and control resources. These kinds of projects fit neatly within the perspective of ecological politics through whose lens we question the viability of extractive and food production models, providing alternatives to the ecological, economic, and democratic crises plaguing the Albertine rift region. Although this perspective is being implemented in a growing number of projects spread across all areas of the planet that face critical conservation issues, some local factors are still crucial in determining the success of these interventions. For this reason, assimilating the local perspective requires a dedicated suitability analysis for the area in which to prioritize and implement conservation and restoration projects (through passive and active methods).

The geographical framework of this report is the Ituri province, in the portion of the Albertine rift located within the territory of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and flagged as territories strongly impacted by ecological injustice.

This study focuses on the process of identifying ecologically fragile areas in which to implement forest conservation and restoration projects from a local, not purely biological and participatory perspective.