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00:00In the town of Kibati in eastern DRC, this improvised open-air market is buzzing with activity.
00:07Residents displaced by the conflict in North Kivu have come here to sell the only thing they can, massive bags of charcoal.
00:15I'm here because we're starving in the camp. We decided to produce charcoal in order to feed our children.
00:25Two years into an armed insurgency by M23 rebels, the DRC's forests have become a major source of sustenance for over a million people displaced by the conflict.
00:36A situation that's become a major driver of deforestation in recent years, including in the protected national park of Virunga.
00:45Every morning, families enter its forests to chop wood for charcoal or in order to make planks.
00:51And the area's once vibrant greenery now resembles an arid shrubland dotted with hacked up tree stumps.
00:58In its latest report, the UN warns forest loss in the territory has reached unprecedented levels since 2021.
01:05Conservationists also point to the M23's occupation of parts of Virunga, which is preventing rangers from effectively protecting the park.
01:14We live because of this park. So when we see that the park is being decimated, it breaks our hearts.
01:21And today we estimate that only around 20 square kilometers of forest remain in the southern sector.
01:27Data by the Global Forest Watch Initiative shows a tree cover loss of around 7,000 hectares a year in Virunga National Park since the start of the M23 insurgency.