The average family farm size is falling in DRC and Burundi’s rural areas as a result of demographic pressure. Fertility is lost as a result of over-exploitation. The population is consequently getting hold of forest areas to make fertile fields and is threatening the boundaries of parks and forests. There is wildlife predation and the use of practices such as slash-and-burn agriculture. These farmers’ new fields are weakening rivers such as the Rusizi in Burundi. In the DRC, migrations to the forests are no longer solving the problem of the fields, for more reasons than one, as this collaborative photostory, produced in Burundi by Arthur Bizimana and in the DRC by Hervé Mukulu, with the support of the Rainforest Journalism Fund in partnership with the Pulitzer Center, explains.
