The Earth’s green lung – a term often considered to be a reference to the Amazon Rainforest and rightfully so. Nevertheless, it is also a term that can be applied to the biodiversity-rich Congo Basin, spanning over 500 million acres, across six different countries, mainly in the DRC. The Congo Basin includes Africa’s oldest National Park, Virunga.
This spectacular landscape is a vital carbon sink and home to three great ape families. But conserving it is an enormous task, while also enabling its surrounding millions of people to benefit from its nature and meet their livelihood needs. The vast biodiversity that can be found in the eastern DRC is one of its kind, including its endangered species, the gorillas. However, this biodiversity is under increasing threat due to multiple, interconnected and historical factors. These include habitat destruction resulting from long ongoing and newly escalating armed conflicts, as well as deforestation linked to the demand for charcoal and agricultural production. Other factors include poaching of animals and the effects of global climate change. Local communities have limited options to support their livelihoods and therefore rely on forest resources and land that are not ecologically sustainable.
In the DRC, the SAFE project aims to tackle deforestation caused by unsustainable agriculture by focusing on three agricultural value chains: coffee, cocoa and natural rubber. Working together with local and international partners, the SAFE project in DRC spans over four forest ecosystems, in areas around important biodiversity landmarks, including the Virunga, Kahuzi-Biega and Salonga National Parks and the Yangambi Biosphere Reserve.
Around 11 million people live within a day’s walk of Virunga, which covers an area of around 780.000 hectares. Many of them face extreme poverty and are often displaced due to over 30 years of conflict. Agricultural production in this area focuses on several commodities, but mainly coffee and cocoa as the geographical conditions are ideal.
Agricultural production practices in the region are often referred to as “traditional”, as many farmers typically rely on manual labor, limited inputs and minimal mechanization. Often, this is not due to the lack of willingness to innovate but because of restricted access to modern technologies or machinery (e.g., tractors, water or soil management systems, digital advisory tools, etc.). As a result, yield tends to remain low which forces many farmers to expand their farmland further by clearing more forest areas to maintain production levels that can sustain their livelihoods. High-value agricultural products such as coffee and cocoa, while essential to local livelihoods, have also been exploited by armed groups to finance conflict. To reduce this source of conflict funding, increased traceability and focus on these value chains from start to finish can help to contribute to greater stability.
Collecting current data on the developments in the forest, especially since the resurgence of violent conflicts in the East of the DRC, is extremely difficult. But the increasing deforestation can be clearly observed: a tree cover loss of around 1.222 hectares was reported in the southern sector of the park in 2023, more than doubling the area of yearly tree cover loss (571 ha) in the previous years (2019-2022) The environmental toll of the M23 conflict in eastern DRC (Analysis).
Overall and in this context, conservation can only succeed if it goes hand in hand with sustainable development – providing energy, water, security, capital and strengthen knowledge so that communities can thrive without depleting the Park’s irreplaceable natural capital.
Virunga Foundation
The Virunga Foundation was founded in 2005 to support the protection of the flora and fauna of the Park, as well as the local communities that live near Virunga’s boundaries.
The Foundation co-manages Virunga National Park through a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) with ICCN (Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature), the Congolese government agency mandated to oversee protected areas.
Under the Virunga Origins label, coffee and cocoa products are sold locally but mainly exported and sold on the European Market/internationally.
As part of its efforts in supporting more sustainable and internationally compliant agricultural production to reduce deforestation, the SAFE project in the DRC initiated a collaboration with the Virunga Foundation: The Eco-Traceability Development Programm.
The aim of the collaboration is to strengthen the developments made in coffee, cocoa and palm oil production in and around Virunga. The core of the program is to establish ethical, transparent and climate-resilient agricultural value chains that serve both environmental and socio-economic goals. This will allow the communities in and around the park to develop based on their earnings from agricultural production while protecting the Virunga ecosystem.
The Eco-Traceability Development Programm
Using digital traceability and management systems, every batch of agricultural produce, whether it is coffee, cocoa or palm oil, will be documented, tracked and reported on. Down to its origin plot, compliance with international regulations will be given through integrated geospatial mapping, mobile data collection and enterprise resource planning tools. Therefore, not only market standards but also evolving legal standards, like the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), are fulfilled. Local producers can receive higher-value market access and get a chance to make stable and even higher earnings.
The Eco-Traceability Development Programm expects as a direct outcome of such developments a coinciding change in opinions on environmental conservation: instead of seeing it as a constraint on local livelihoods this approach to production, management and export opportunities could become a catalyst for more sustainable growth and care for the environment. Showing that conservation and economic growth can go hand-in-hand, benefiting farmers, buyers and the environment.
So far, 20 so-called investigators have been trained through the Eco-Traceability Development Programm: on the EUDR, its requirements and its impact on agriculture in the North Kivu region. The investigator’s role is to forward their knowledge to producers in the implementation area. This will ensure that no one is left behind and everybody can adapt as best as possible to ensure that necessary requirements on the producer’s side can be met. The investigators learned to geolocate plantations, input data offline, and communicate transparently with farmers. Over 4000 farms have already been mapped and registered, counting around 1940 cocoa, 1209 coffee and 770 palm oil plantations located in the Mangina & Mutwanga zones. A total area of around 4,596.9 hectares has been recorded and after this starting phase of registering farmers and their land, the Eco-Traceability Development Programm aims to increase its work and have well over 10.000 producers reached by the end of 2025.
The tools used for the activities include a mobile application called iCollect Farmer for GPS-enabled, offline, polygonal field boundary mapping, planting data and farmer demographic information. Using the interoperable tool iCoop Live, the data is uploaded and processed to serve as a central dashboard for the traceability system.
Complementing this, an integrated Odoo-based system has been developed to manage the purchase and traceability of agricultural products. Through this platform, farmers can signal when they would like their coffee, cocoa or palm oil to be purchased and can also keep track of all their sales and purchases. Each delivery is digitally registered at the cooperative level using GPS-enabled tablets, mobile weighing scales, and barcode scanning tools, allowing the platform to track each batch of product from the individual farmer to the final export product. This data is then cross-checked with cooperative-level sales records to verify origins, volumes and payments, ensuring full transparency and preventing untraceable products from entering the supply chain. Farmers and cooperatives complying with traceability standards gain access to higher-value markets and receive more transparent and timely payments.
To ensure efficient and accurate data collection, post-training support includes a structured supervision framework, weekly evaluations, WhatsApp groups for rapid communication, and systematic operational monitoring to ensure data integrity. Through the same Odoo platform, farmers also have access to e-learning modules, which allow them to strengthen their knowledge on sustainable farming, traceability requirements, and cooperative management practices.
The Impact
Under the Virunga Origins label, the cooperatives working with Virunga have been processing their products locally and exporting them to the EU market. The cocoa beans are processed at Congo’s first chocolate factory and made into a variety of products available to purchase in select stores or online in the EU. The introduction of traceability, the renewal of certification for the cooperatives producing under the Virunga Origins label have contributed to an increase in sales in 2025.
Building on the traceability system developed through the Eco-Traceability Development Programme, the Chocolate Gorillas product line under the Virunga Origins brand showcases fully traceable cocoa from farmers in Mangina and Mutwanga. Each figure highlights the Park’s iconic species while demonstrating to international buyers that Virunga cocoa can meet the highest standards of transparency and compliance. This strong link between traceability and market appeal has helped the product gain traction in European markets, creating additional income for cooperatives and reinforcing the value of the traceability system for farmers and buyers alike.
Cooperatives involved in the value chain have gained increased access to export buyers and financial institutions. The ability to demonstrate traceability and compliance has allowed them to position themselves as low-risk partners for trade and investment. Several cooperatives have initiated pre-financing discussions with European buyers […].
Another outcome of the collaboration is in regard to the harsh resurgence of violent conflict in the Eastern parts of the DRC. Stretching over multiple provinces, the conflict which reached a new escalation in the beginning of 2025 affects not only the Virunga landscape, but also other protected areas in the East DRC, such as the Kahuzi-Biega National Park in South Kivu Province. Conservation efforts become more difficult and an increase in deforestation can be reported already in and around both forest ecosystems2. The team at Virunga is working carefully on ensuring the safe implementation of the project, in an area that so far has thankfully not been affected by the conflict. The joined partnership not only explains and supports the implementation of regulations such as the EUDR for better compliance, it is also used as a “conflict-sensitivity tool”: the transparency created through the registration of farmers, the traceability of local products and verified payments, local farmers and producers receive more trust from international buyers. Local producers and therefore communities can better engage in legal capital flows, support themselves more sustainably and are less pressured to engage in illicit business stringed to rebel groups.
