Whose land is it anyway?

CFLEDD (Coalition of Women Leaders for the Environment and Sustainable Development) is a growing movement of women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) advocating for women’s land rights and sustainable development. We spoke to Néné Mainzana, the President of CFLEDD, who explained why now is a critical moment to advance land rights for rural communities – and for women in particular – in the DRC.

As a child, Néné Mainzana grew up listening to stories of the forest from her parents and grandparents. She vividly recalls trips to the forest with her father, experiencing its incredible sights and sounds for the first time and seeing indigenous villages with their huts built using materials taken from the forest around them.

Years later, on returning to the same place, the forest she remembered was no longer there, the rural communities long gone. Large-scale logging had devastated the landscape, forcing the inhabitants of the village to relocate, leaving them with nothing.

In her career as a journalist, land rights and the impact of unsustainable development on rural communities and biodiversity have been recurring themes. Frustrated by the lack of transparency and information available from government sources, Néné got involved with civil society groups advocating for land rights for rural and indigenous peoples. As she developed her understanding of the issues and got more involved, it was clear that key voices were not being heard:

“If you go to any of the villages, it’s the women who go into the forests, every day. The forest is their supermarket, their pharmacy – it provides for all their needs. If there’s anyone who should benefit from help, it’s the women who are in the fields every day, 365 days a year and who do 80 or 90 per cent of the work. Women should have a say in how the land is managed, along with the men.”