Reporting on timber firm’s suspect Congo carbon offset scheme draws legal scrutiny

30 Oct 2025

In March 2022, Mongabay published an investigation in partnership with El País and Planeta Futuro with support from the Rainforest Journalism Investigations Network (RIN) of the Pulitzer Center that exposed irregularities and allegations that 15 forest concessions covering millions of hectares in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) — equivalent in size to Belgium — were illegally reassigned in 2020 and converted to carbon credit projects, without public oversight or consulting people who would be affected.

The feature called attention to the actions of an outgoing environment minister in December 2020, who signed a series of last-minute contracts transferring millions of hectares of concessions belonging to a Portuguese-owned forestry firm from its logging subsidiaries to a subsidiary set up to manage its carbon-trading operations.

The seven-month reporting effort revealed that these deals were made without public oversight, nor with legally required consultation – either with local authorities or the Indigenous Bambuti, Bacwa, and Batwa peoples – who live on and depend upon these ancestral lands.

According to recent research, the degradation of tropical forests in the Amazon and Southeast Asia may soon make them net emitters of carbon, leaving parts of the Congo Basin like the one pictured here as possibly the last significant land-based tropical carbon sinks. Image by Ahtziri Gonzalez/CIFOR via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
According to recent research, the degradation of tropical forests in the Amazon and Southeast Asia may soon make them net emitters of carbon, leaving parts of the Congo Basin like the one pictured here as possibly the last significant land-based tropical carbon sinks. Image by Ahtziri Gonzalez/CIFOR via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

The concessions, many of which overlap with protected areas and carbon-rich peatlands, were being positioned for carbon credit sales to international buyers. The story highlighted a growing trend in opaque “conservation” titles controlled by foreign investors, which raise concerns over the potential for future carbon offset abuses.

Impact

After the reporter, Gloria Pallares, shared the investigation’s findings with EU officials, they incorporated the noted concessions into an April 2022 legal review, which informed the suspension of illegal titles and the disbursement of at least $500 million over the next five years. According to Pallares, her feature is what brought the 15 concessions’ new status to the EU officials’ attention, and spurred them to investigate their last minute conversions.

The story shines a spotlight on how hasty and possibly unethical decisions by officials can undermine both Indigenous land rights and global climate goals. By exposing these violations and spurring EU scrutiny, Mongabay’s independent journalism played a crucial role in holding corporations and governments accountable at this pivotal time for the Congo Basin.

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Banner image: A dugout canoe crossing a wetland in Basoko territory, northern DRC. The Congo Basin has the world’s largest tropical peatlands ​​— a type of forested wetland that locks billions of tons of carbon in the soil, accumulated as semi-decayed organic matter over thousands of years. Image by Gloria Pallares/El País.