image

MITI, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO- NOVEMBER 2010 .Chalking a circle around a stake, teacher Jacques Badarhi demonstrates some of the basic principals of tree planting to a third grade class at the Anga agro-forestry school. Situated just five kilometres from the Kauzi-Biega National Park, the establishment was created in by local grassroots NGO the Pole Pole Foundation in1994 in order to teach a future generation of children to conserve the forests that surround them. One of only three schools in Congo to have a specialist curriculum, four lessons a week are devoted to conservation during which the pupils of Anga produce and plant around 125,000 new trees each year. Once a former student who achieved top marks in the country, Jacques and hundreds of others who were educated here have now gone on to spread the message of environmental protection to a future generation on whom the future of the Congo Basin's forests depends. (KEYSTONE/NOOR/Alixandra Fazzina)