Support to Indigenous girls and women in restoring the biodiversity of community forests through the planting and rational management of edible caterpillars in Mwenga territory

Our project is facing the problem of deforestation caused by lawless logging, particularly irrational logging of trees in the community forests of Mwenga for the production of ember to Bukavu. This contributes to the significant destruction of forest biodiversity, including the scarcity of edible caterpillars, to the disadvantage of indigenous girls and women who depend on these forest products. This bad practice is also the cause of climatic disturbances, food insecurity and the accentuation of poverty in 7 groups bordering the Itombwe Nature Reserve whose forests are overexploited and degraded at Basimweda 1st-Kalundu, Irangi- Ilibo, Kigogo, Bawandeme, Bingili-Bazala, Byonga and Kitutu in Mwenga territory east of DR Congo.

To this end, the objective of our project is to contribute to the fight against deforestation by planting host trees of edible caterpillars with a view to participatory restoration of this forest biodiversity (edible caterpillar) beneficial to indigenous girls and women. , as the use of caterpillars as a food product makes it possible, on the one hand, to compensate for the loss of crops and food insecurity, and on the other hand to create a source of income for indigenous girls and women in the 7 riparian groups of the Itombwe Natural Reserve whose forests are overexploited and degraded in Basimweda 1st-Kalundu, Irangi-Ilibo, Kigogo, Bawandeme, Bingili-Bazala, Byonga and Kitutu in the territory of Mwenga.