Postponed in late 2025 for security reasons, the planting campaign led by Climate Change Africa Opportunities (CCAO) was completed in March 2026. Restoration polygons collected and validated in May 2026 confirm 116.96 hectares restored across the Kamanyola and Luvungi sites.

A landscape under pressure

In the southern part of South Kivu province, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Ruzizi Plain covers 644 km² across the territories of Walungu and Uvira, along the river that forms the border with Rwanda and Burundi. As of 2016, the landscape was still made up of 45% farmland, 30% forest, 20% grassland, 3% shrubland and 1% built-up areas.

That balance has since been eroded. Driven by rapid population growth, small-scale agriculture places mounting pressure on the very forests and natural resources it depends on. Loss of vegetation cover, degradation of the understorey, mining, human-induced fires and soil compaction from livestock grazing have all sharply increased the risk of soil erosion.

The consequences are already visible in daily life: declining soil productivity, landslides and mudflows, and deteriorating drinking water quality and availability.

CCAO's response: restoration through agroforestry

In response, CCAO set itself a clear goal: to contribute to the restoration and preservation of the vegetation and forest landscape by planting fertilizer trees, forest species and fruit trees in deforested areas — thereby strengthening the territory's ecosystem services over the long term: carbon storage, water filtration, soil retention and community well-being.

The approach rests on two inseparable pillars.

Restoring with communities, not on their behalf. The project works alongside local populations — particularly young people and women smallholder farmers — to establish agroecosystems that protect soils and biodiversity while improving farmland productivity. Activities cover Kamanyola and its surroundings (Kaboya, Migina, Muroha, Mishimumu, Irohero, Kafunda, Kambara, Ihindiro, Nyarubale, Kalunga, Luleka), as well as Katogota and Luvungi.

Improving livelihoods for the long term. Restoration only makes sense if it benefits the households carrying it out. Higher agricultural productivity goes hand in hand with income-generating activities (IGAs) built around producing and selling fruit from the trees planted and restored.

From nursery to field: the 2025-2026 journey

During the first half of 2025, CCAO acquired new seed stock to strengthen its nurseries. Site demarcation, seedbed preparation, sowing, germination monitoring and regular watering resulted in 33,335 seedlings sown at Kamanyola and 16,523 at Luvungi.

The second half of the year was devoted to transplanting, monitoring and tending growth. The outcome: 34,737 seedlings at Kamanyola and 17,472 at Luvungi reached normal development and were ready for planting out.

It was at precisely this point that conditions changed. Over the final two months of 2025, the deteriorating security situation made it impossible to carry out any project activity in the intervention zone. To protect beneficiaries and all personnel involved, CCAO judged it both prudent and responsible to postpone completion of the planting originally scheduled for 2025 and reschedule it for the following year.

That objective was met in March 2026. The planting campaign was carried through to completion across both operational sites.

116.96 hectares restored: measured and validated results

The month of May 2026 was dedicated to collecting and submitting the validated restoration polygons for the CCAO-Kamanyola and CCAO-Luvungi sites. These georeferenced records document the actual footprint of the restored areas with precision.

This represents an average density of roughly 446 trees per hectare, consistent with an agroforestry model combining fertilizer trees, traditional forest species and fruit trees within plots farmed by local producers.

Stronger community ownership

The project mobilised a broad network of local actors. CCAO employed 278 people (42 of them part-time), drew on 192 volunteers and identified 355 beneficiaries. Among those employed, 61% are women and 29% are young people. All workers received fair pay, with equal remuneration guaranteed.

This grounding rests on durable local structures: a local nursery growers' committee, a Local Committee for the Fight Against Deforestation (CLD) and three Indigenous Forest Monitoring Committees (CAMF). These bodies bring together young Indigenous and local smallholder farmers, women producers, and local concession holders and farmers. They lead the creation, expansion, upkeep — weeding, watering, pest control — and surveillance of the sites, in line with local rules and the management plan they themselves adapted.

Where digital tools meet local know-how

CCAO has integrated digital tools into nursery monitoring. The Agri4 mobile application is used with sensors for crop detection, crop disease, nutrient deficiency, harmful insects and weed control — enabling continuous, precise measurement of environmental and physiological plant parameters.

Alongside it, OpenCamera captures metadata and geotagged images documenting field activities. It is these same georeferencing practices that made it possible, in May 2026, to produce the 58 validated restoration polygons. By combining digital technology with local expertise, the organisation ensures rigorous monitoring of plant health and long-term growth.

Gender at the heart of the approach

The project ensured that 60% of nursery growers are women, 30% young people and 10% local concession holders and farmers. All three groups take an active part in decision-making through regular consultation meetings in Kamanyola, Luvungi and Katogota.

Mainstreaming gender throughout implementation serves a dual purpose: countering the discrimination Indigenous women face in decisions on how the forest landscape is used, and strengthening recognition of their specific rights to access and enjoy land. The effect is already visible in the participation of women and girls in restoration work, in sustainable landscape management and in site surveillance.

A challenge overcome, a constraint that remains

Insecurity was the defining obstacle of this project cycle. Delayed delivery of materials, disrupted maintenance activities, a postponed planting campaign: the consequences were tangible. The Katogota site remained cut off, with access made impossible by violent fighting.

To keep the other two sites on track, CCAO stepped up dialogue with administrative authorities, making the case for responsible restoration work. Those efforts secured clearance to continue operations, along with assurances of protection for CCAO members and staff. It was this patient, sustained groundwork that made it possible to complete planting in March 2026 at Kamanyola and Luvungi.

The main lesson? Flexibility and building collaborative relationships with local administrative authorities are decisive conditions for site access — and therefore for continuity of restoration in fragile settings. Postponing a contractual deadline to protect teams and beneficiaries is not a failure: it is what makes a durable result possible.

“These 52,209 trees did not grow under ordinary conditions: they grew while the fighting drew closer, and today they are in the ground. If we held on, it is because the local committees, the women nursery growers and the territorial authorities chose to hold on with us. Restoring the Ruzizi is not something you decree from an office — it is built with the people who live off this land.”

Trésor Badisungu, CCAO Coordinator

What comes next

With 116.96 hectares restored, 58 validated polygons and consolidated community governance, CCAO closes one chapter and opens another: long-term monitoring. Local committees now maintain and watch over the planted areas, with a simple goal — that the trees put in the ground in March 2026 are still standing ten years from now.

Yet the durability of this work hinges on a condition the organisation does not control.

“You cannot restore a forest under gunfire. Every month of insecurity means seedlings dying for lack of care, displaced families abandoning their fields, and years of work to start over. Katogota reminds us of this every day. Peace returning to eastern DRC is not only a humanitarian emergency: it is the first ecological precondition. We call on all parties, and on our national and international partners, to make it a priority — because without peace, no tree planted in the Ruzizi is guaranteed to reach maturity.”

Trésor Badisungu, CCAO Coordinator

A project supported by TerraFund for AFR100

This project to restore the forest landscape of the Ruzizi Plain is implemented with funding from TerraFund for AFR100, an initiative supporting locally led organisations working on landscape restoration across Africa, in service of the AFR100 goal of restoring 100 million hectares of degraded land on the continent by 2030.

The Lake Kivu and Ruzizi River Basin — spanning Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda — is among the priority landscapes selected by TerraFund, placing CCAO's work within a wider regional restoration effort.

CCAO extends its sincere thanks to TerraFund for AFR100 and its partners — the World Resources Institute (WRI), One Tree Planted, Realize Impact and the VIA Foundation — for their trust, technical guidance and financial support. That trust mattered all the more because it came with an understanding of the security context behind the postponed planting, allowing CCAO to put the safety of its teams and beneficiaries first without compromising the quality of the result.

Our thanks also go to the administrative authorities of Walungu and Uvira territories, and to the local committees, nursery growers, volunteers and communities of Kamanyola, Luvungi and Katogota — without whom none of these 52,209 trees would be in the ground today.