Original subtitles

(insects chirping) (serene music)

Landscapes of bewitching beauty.

Unique.

Species-rich.

Exemplary.

Because something extraordinary is happening here.

These natural habitats remain intact

only because humans intervene and shape them.

A new pact with nature.

(moving music)

(traditional vocal music)

An area of vast rainforests at the heart of Africa,

the northern region of the Republic of the Congo.

There are landscapes here that no tourist has ever seen.

It's the home of the gorillas.

More precisely, the western lowland gorillas.

There are more of these great apes

living here than anywhere else.

But this region has long since ceased

to be a natural paradise.

Roads now cut through once inaccessible areas.

Villages have become small towns.

Humans are penetrating deeper and deeper into the forests

in search of costly tropical timber.

Is this a repeat of the drama

being acted out in other rainforests?

Or how can the treasures of nature be exploited

without destroying the home of the gorillas?

(tree tumbling)

(moving traditional music)

(traditional vocal music)

The Odzala-Kokoua National Park

is one of the oldest in Africa.

Founded in 1935, it's one of the few places

where they can be seen as close as this.

The western lowland gorillas.

They're the most widespread subspecies of gorilla.

But relatively little is known

about their behavior patterns,

because they usually give humans a wide berth

and can't easily be observed

in the dense undergrowth of the jungle.

Despite their shyness, their curiosity often prevails,

especially among the younger animals.

(intriguing flute music)

They're only a few meters away,

but they're completely unruffled.

The smallest of them come closest.

They know, of course, that their father

is keeping an eye on them.

160 kilograms of muscle mass.

He's the head of a proud family of 22 gorillas.

These animals are considered exceptionally docile

and spend most of their time on the ground.

But they're also highly skilled climbers.

This idyllic scene can easily obscure the fact

that they're a critically endangered species.

It's hard to estimate how many western lowland gorillas

there are in the remote rainforests of central Africa.

Since researchers have discovered

new populations in recent years,

the total number is thought to be around 316,000.

It's a unique experience to watch a fully grown gorilla male

engaged in his favorite activities: eating and sleeping,

sleeping and eating.

(rhythmic percussion)

(moving music)

Another rare animal, the African forest elephant,

can only be spotted in the Odzala-Kokoua National Park

when it ventures out of the undergrowth.

Like many other animals, it's drawn to a place

which opens up deep in the jungle.

(moving vocal music)

This natural swathe extends through the forest

for a kilometer and a half.

Clearings like this are a special feature

of forests in the Congo Basin.

African forest buffalo also frequent these clearings.

Whether it's Sitatunga antelopes or African fish eagles,

the animals find something here

that they need for survival: minerals in the soil.

Even thought the fascinating wildlife

in the national park is under protection,

by no means all its inhabitants live in safety.

(foreign language)

A greater spot-nosed monkey, or what's left of it.

Seven kilograms of meat destined for the cooking pot.

Trade in this so-called bushmeat is a growing threat

to the wildlife of the region.

The eco guards are armed rangers

tasked with stemming the trade in bushmeat.

Nearly every vehicle they stop at the checkpoint

is full of dead long-tailed monkeys or small antelopes.

They see hundreds of carcasses like these every day.

The problem is that they can't simply confiscate this meat.

Hunting and eating wild animals

is traditional in northern Congo

and, within limits, perfectly legal.

As long as the rangers don't find any protected species,

like gorillas, they have to let the hunters drive on.

They can't prevent the hunting of wildlife,

just check that the hunting laws are observed.

But sometimes, even when the laws are breached,

their hands are tied.

For the regional authorities, it's more important

that the local population has enough to eat

than that nature is protected.

(foreign language)

Normally, commercial trade in bushmeat

is strictly forbidden at this time,

because we're in the closed season for hunting.

So, we're actually not allowed

to authorize the bushmeat trade.

But the reality of life in the Sangha province,

I don't know whether it's a political matter,

but in any case, hunting is the main occupation

of the people here.

So, we're obliged to help the people.

That's the reality.

The rangers examine

a lot of vehicles every day.

Nevertheless, trade in bushmeat is booming.

Most of the 80,000 inhabitants in and around the park

don't see why they should do without a cheap source of food

that's completely normal for them.

(rhythmic drumming)

The national park is administered from Mbomo,

a small town on the edge of the conservation area.

Some years ago, the non-governmental organization

African Parks took over the management.

Since then, they've done a lot to try and convince

the locals about nature conservation.

No easy task.

(troubling music)

That applies to ivory too.

The illegal trade in the white gold

has now advanced into the jungle of central Africa.

Even the dense rainforest does not prevent the poachers

from mercilessly shooting down the gray giants.

What we see here is the ivory

seized over the last 18 months.

Including the tusks of young animals

weighing just a few hundred grams.

The evidence storeroom of the park

also holds the criminals' weapons:

confiscated rifles used by the poachers

not just to go hunting for elephants

but also to threaten the rangers.

There are even military weapons here: Kalashnikovs.

The national park doesn't have the money

to put more armed rangers into the fight against poachers.

What's also lacking is the support

of the people living around the park.

Elephant poaching has, without a doubt,

increased in the last year.

There is a ...

decrease in job availability in Congo.

There's a certain increase in poverty.

And it's always been a way of life of population here

to revert back to traditional ...

resources like ivory or bushmeat,

so the problem has been increasing.

One indicator is, for example, the price of ivory

has doubled over the last year.

(troubling music)

It's not enough

just to check vehicles and seize weapons.

It's a question of the people of the Congo

recognizing for themselves a value

in an intact flora and fauna.

They have to benefit from nature conservation.

The national park needs allies.

How hard that is is shown by a visit to Lango,

a village of 150 inhabitants in the middle of the jungle.

(impressive music)

The villagers have laid out small plots and gardens

to plant manioc, a few avocado trees, and oil palms.

The village regularly receives

uninvited visitors from the park.

(foreign language)

They wait for the right moment

to devastate everything.

Then it's pandemonium, a deafening noise from over there.

And then they attack.

It's weird, very weird.

It's deadly.

We're really persecuted by these elephants.

In view of the trampled plants,

the farmer is not particularly enthusiastic

about protecting wild animals.

(foreign language)

Destruction by animals,

by protecting animals.

People should think about the human population first.

We're in favor of conservation and against the poachers,

but we need the government to let us live in peace.

The national highway marks the boundary

of the park, a border which doesn't keep

the animal population in, because there's no fence.

A lot of things are different over the road.

(horn honking)

The gorillas run out of the national park,

directly into the neighboring territory of a timber company,

into a forest that's exploited commercially.

That might be expected to frighten the gorillas

away from this area.

But the opposite seems to be the case.

Here, too, gorilla families wander through the jungle.

It's not uncommon for them to encounter loggers.

(moving drum music)

The loggers arrive every day just before six in the morning.

They have an hour and a half's drive

through the vast forest of the timber company behind them.

The loggers with their huge power saws,

the lorry drivers and digger operators,

get ready for their well-paid work.

They're employed by the IFO,

the Industrie Forestiere de Ouesso.

The company has acquired a forestry concession

from the government, giving it the right

to utilize the timber from a forest region.

(moving music)

Forestry engineer Jean-Paul Belinga

ensures that everyone keeps to the schedule.

Time is money, even in the jungle.

(emotional music)

With an area of 11,600 square kilometers,

the IFO forest is the biggest forestry concession

in the country, over seven times the size of London.

(emotional vocal music)

(tree creaking)

(sawing)

10 teams of three men fell trees one after the other.

The chainsaw is repositioned again and again.

That ensures that the tree falls in a specific direction.

(sawing)

(shouting in a foreign language)

The falling tree must not endanger the loggers

or do unnecessary damage to the rest of the forest.

Only selected valuable trees are felled.

They're each marked with a number

so their processing can be traced

from the forest to buyers around the world.

(conversing in a foreign language)

The loggers in the IFO forest follow a detailed plan.

They all carry maps of the area to be felled.

These not only show the position of the trees to be felled.

Above all, they mark the trees and areas

to be left untouched.

(foreign language)

Felling trees does not necessarily mean

destroying the forest.

We don't cut down all the trees, by any means.

We're only allowed to fell trees

with a given minimum diameter.

So, it's not destruction but a form of harvesting,

and it's completely accountable,

with as little damage as possible.

(moving music)

Despite the insects, heat, and humidity,

the loggers have to remain highly concentrated.

A wrong cut can have serious consequences

for the men's safety, the timber quality, or for nature.

They try to ensure that the tree falls

where it will do least damage or destruction to other trees.

(shouting in a foreign language)

But isn't that just fine words

in view of pictures like these?

(tree creaking and cracking)

From this perspective, cutting down a jungle giant

looks like deforestation.

Seeing the whole picture requires a bird's eye view.

The damage caused by the felled tree

really is kept to a limited area.

There is no wholesale deforestation here.

In this forest, on average, just one tree is felled

on the area the size of two football pitches.

And not just for environmental

but also for good commercial reasons.

The timber company's business is only secure

as long as the forest survives.

Jean-Paul Belinga from Cameroon

and Frenchman Antoine Couturier

are responsible for ensuring that IFO operates

in a very different way from what many conservationists

in Europe might imagine.

They, too, work with maps containing precise information:

the overall view of what is to be done in the forest

and what not.

Clearings, streams, and planned pathways

are plotted just as carefully as every large tree.

But in a many-thousand-square-kilometer jungle,

how did IFO achieve measurements precise to the last meter?

(moving music)

By looking, tree by tree.

(shouting in a foreign language)

Long before loggers enter the forest,

these men are hard at work,

taking an inventory of the rainforest.

Their task is to record which types of trees

are growing here and how thick they are.

(hacking)

(shouting)

Calculating the diameter of each tree

is essential for planning ahead.

Depending on the species, trees have to be

at least 70 or 100 centimeters thick

before they can be felled.

Thinner ones are left, as are the very big old trees

with diameters of over two meters.

(shouting in a foreign language)

Species, diameter, and position are noted down,

and the tree is given a number

so it can be identified later.

All the information is then stored in a database.

(emotional music)

(shouting in a foreign language)

Through the inventory, the timber company

knows every tree before any loggers arrive.

(foreign language)

We do this to know the forest precisely,

to know exactly how much tinder there is,

what kind, and what tree trunks are there.

We need that for our planning

so we can know how much timber

we can harvest by the end of the year.

(traditional vocal music)

But the population census in the rainforest

doesn't just cover the trees.

Wildlife is also systematically recorded,

whether it's the black-and-while colobus monkey

or the African forest elephant.

In a planned felling area,

experts from a conservation organization

look in advance for zones in which

there are concentrations of animals or rare species.

If they find an area where, for instance,

a particularly high number of gorillas live,

it will be spared from the loggers.

Overall, the IFO timber company has set aside

27% of its whole concession territory for conservation.

Even in the rest of its land,

trees are not felled everywhere.

The area in which felling is allowed

is divided into 30 zones.

And felling takes place in just one of the zones each year.

At the end of its forest inventory,

the company knows every corner of the felling zone.

Every dot represents a tree.

This enables them to work in a very efficient

and therefore cost-saving way.

In 2017, precisely 45,482 trees ...

could have been felled.

In fact, more than half of them were left standing.

This forest zone can regenerate in time,

before the loggers return in 30 years.

(traditional vocal music)

Other than in the neighboring national park,

the timber company has quite a lot to offer

the local people, and not just jobs.

(foreign language)

Eric Mvouyou has come to Atencion,

a village with a good 500 inhabitants.

Together with his colleagues from the IFO social team,

he explains the company's plans to the locals.

This not only ensures good neighborly relations;

it's also in keeping with the demands

of human rights groups, who are often critical

of timber companies' dealing with local inhabitants.

The village elder would like the timber company

to repair a road leading to the next village.

(foreign language)

This woman wants the timber company to ensure

that certain trees around the village will not be felled.

(applauding)

(foreign language)

And this man asks if the company could contribute

to the wages of the local teachers,

since they're often not paid by the state.

The forest management plan approved by the authorities

requires the timber company to pay

into a local development fund.

The inhabitants also have a say in how it's used.

(foreign language)

We're here before work starts

in the felling zone.

When we reach agreement, we'll draw up a contract

to be signed by everyone involved.

Only then can the company begin to fell trees.

We've just been talking with them

about the felling zone for the coming year.

Eric also meets the people

who aren't at home in the village

but in the forest itself.

(singing in a foreign language)

They belong to the Baka and Mikaya pygmy peoples

who live predominantly in and from the forest.

For them the forest is a spiritual being.

They sing to ensure that the forest

will continue to look after them.

(singing in a foreign language)

The work of the timber company

is introducing a new era into their lives.

But they, too, have a say in what happens.

It's something very new for the Baka and the Mikaya,

since normally nobody here

takes their interests into account.

(conversing in a foreign language)

A large P is painted onto this wild mango tree.

It tells the loggers that the tree is protected.

Its fruit is an important source of food.

(singing in a foreign language)

The timber company has undertaken

to preserve settlements, sacred sites,

and trees that are important to the pygmies from logging.

That's why the social team is also being shown this tree.

It's a medicine tree with a very special remedy.

(foreign language)

The bark is for settling problems.

When there's a dispute, if a thief doesn't admit

that he's stolen something, we take the bark,

crush it, and put it in water.

Then we put drops of the water into the eye.

We find out if you're guilty, because it blinds you.

Fortunately, the arbitration powers of the bark

take effect before it's applied.

For fear of losing their sight,

so far every guilt person has confessed.

Using a GPS device, a pygmy woman determines

the precise location of the tree

so that it can be recorded in the loggers' maps.

The singing moves everyone onto the next tree

with magical powers, a sort of anti-migration tree.

(foreign language)

If a husband leaves and won't come back,

the wife takes the bark of this tree and eats it,

mixed with a local pepper.

She cries out, "Husband, come back!

"Husband, come back!"

And it works.

He'll come back.

(laughing)

Does it always work?

The answer is clear.

Every time.

Responsible forestry includes respect,

not only for nature but also

for the traditions of the forest dwellers.

In addition, the timber company provides jobs

and financial support for the villagers,

so no one here is against the trade in tropical woods.

(languorous music)

The IFO sawmill lies on the banks of the Sangha,

in the small town of Ngombe.

With around a thousand workers,

it's the biggest employer in the region.

The timber company belongs to the Swiss enterprise

Interholco that trades worldwide in tropical woods.

For years, environmentalists have called

for a boycott of tropical woods.

This timber company aims to change the minds

of even critical consumers, and thereby open up new markets.

The timber company practices sustainable forestry

and protects wildlife and the rights

of the local population.

That's why this timber has been awarded

an official certification for responsible forestry:

the label of the FSC, the Forestry Stewardship Council.

Independent inspectors check once a year

whether the company really is respecting all the conditions.

Among experts, the IFO is regarded as an exemplary company

in terms of sustainable forestry.

But there is one problem.

Despite all the efforts, some eco-activists

still see all the talk of sustainable tropical timber

as nothing but fine words.

Vincent Istace is fully aware of the mistrust.

He works at the neighboring timber company of CIB,

which has also been awarded the FSC quality label.

Many critics believe that nature

can only be protected in a national park.

(foreign language)

Everything to do with forestry,

whether it's in the Congo Basin or on other continents,

is viewed by the public with mistrust,

because trees are felled, roads laid, and forests destroyed.

That always creates a negative image.

Consumers in Europe and America

don't see how things are done here,

so they have a lot of prejudices.

The forestry sector

is the most important employer here after the state.

Just imagine if we had to stop our work here.

No more forestry.

Then 1,000 people would be unemployed.

Together with their families,

10,000 people would be affected.

If you want to protect the forest

in the northern Congo, there are clearly

two ways to go about it.

Either you set up national parks

and give them the necessary resources to protect them,

because otherwise the exist only on paper.

Or you create forestry concessions,

in which the forest is used sustainably.

(traditional vocal music)

The two FSC-certified timber companies

really do keep to the rules,

as is demonstrated by their regular controls.

One example, the timber yard,

where the tree trunks are stored,

must not be bigger than 2,500 square meters in area.

This is measure precisely by GPS.

Once the loggers have finished in the forest,

the inspectors check that they've kept

to the maximum width of the tracks

on which the Caterpillar tractors

haul away the tree trunks.

If they detect any serious infringements,

the workers responsible are called to account.

In the worst case scenario,

the company could lose its environmental label.

(conversing in a foreign language)

(moving music)

In the IFO concession, around 7% of the felling zone

set for the year is opened up

by felling trees and laying transport roads.

And it's amazing how quickly these areas grow up again.

Six months after the loggers disappeared,

the tracts cleared for the tractors are overgrown again.

The crown of a felled tree that was left behind

is hardly recognizable.

And after 10 years, it's virtually impossible

to find a forest area where trees were felled.

According to the GPS, one such area was exactly here.

10 years later, and the forest is hard to distinguish

from primary rainforest.

Environmentally responsible forestry

pays off for the timber company,

because they want to use the forest again in the future.

But how does the work of the loggers

affect the lives of the gorillas?

How well or how badly do the great apes fare

in the IFO forestry concession?

To find out, independent scientists

have counted the animals, or, rather, the sleeping nests

they build from plant material every day.

The biologists conducted their gorilla count twice,

in 2007 and 2014,

to find out if numbers had gone up or down.

(soft flute music)

The result of their study is as unequivocal

as it is surprising, even for the experts.

There are about 70,000 western lowland gorillas

living in the IFO concession, more than anywhere else,

and far more than in the neighboring

Odzala-Kokoua National Park.

And their numbers have remained stable over the years.

(soft flute music)

In contrast to many other regions,

the gorilla population has not declined here,

and that's good news for the timber company, too,

because the gorillas eat the fruits of the trees,

thereby disseminating the seeds.

So they contribute to the regeneration of the forest.

Against all prejudices, the gorillas have no problem

in sharing the forest with the loggers.

The timber company respects their living space

and even protects the animals against poachers.

But it's not just protection

that the FSC-certified timber companies

offer the gorillas.

They've also ensured that the area

in which the gorillas can safely roam

has significantly increased over the years.

(bouncy music)

The secure home of the gorillas

in the north of the Republic of the Congo

has now grown to nearly twice the size of Belgium.

This success is due not just to the national parks,

but above all to two timber companies

that the outside world has so far hardly even heard of.

Does what's been achieved for the gorillas

also apply to the forest elephants?

Again and again, forest engineer Jean-Paul Belinga

sees the odd one of these rare animals in the IFO forest.

No one knows exactly how many elephants live here, though.

They're difficult to count.

They cover long distances in their roaming.

(hacking)

In a bid to track down the elephants,

Jean-Paul Belinga uses a video trap.

The camera is operational for days on end.

It's triggered automatically by movement,

and then films short sequences.

But even after a week, there's been no sign

of elephants in this location; just moths and flies.

(buzzing)

(traditional vocal music)

Another try in Ignoli, a village on the national highway,

which lies between the timber company's territory

and the Odzala-Kokoua National Park.

The village has been abandoned.

The last 16 villages moved away two months ago.

Because their village was repeatedly visited

by forest elephants.

The gray giants were particularly interested

in the village's oil palm plantation.

Do they still keep coming back?

(rustling)

Finally, the video trap captures its first forest elephant.

Its tusks have a somewhat different coloring,

which makes them especially sought after by poachers.

Before sunset, no other elephants appear.

(insects chirping)

But fortunately, the video trap

can also film in the dark.

This elephant is giving its back

a good scratch on a broken palm tree.

And he's not alone.

Gradually, a small herd appears.

Before long, they're quarreling about who should eat first.

(vocalizing)

By the end, there'll be very little left of the oil palm.

No wonder many locals see the elephants as a scourge.

Not even a passing car can interrupt his meal.

While the biologists were counting the gorillas

in the logging concession, they also looked

for traces of forest elephants.

Finally, they estimated their number in the IFO territory

at between three- and four-thousand.

(vocalizing)

Early in the morning, the video trap is triggered again.

And again shortly after.

Three men are carrying a Kalashnikov

and blood-stained sacks.

Poachers.

Unaware of being watched,

they're obviously following the tracks of the elephants.

These pictures will later help the rangers

in their hunt for the poachers.

To put a stop to their poaching,

heavily-armed eco guards are out and about every day.

The FSC-certified timber companies

also pay for these rangers,

who work closely with the national parks.

(soft music)

(shouting in a foreign language)

The poachers have made off.

(parrot shrieking)

But they left behind part of their booty.

The rangers find live, gray parrots in the cages.

They've already freed hundreds of captured birds.

The trade in gray parrots is the latest

business venture of the poachers.

(foreign language)

The birds were ordered

by people in Brazzaville or Kinshasa.

The poachers sell them for around 40 euros each.

And the dealers then take them to Europe,

where they're sold for 300 euros.

Illegal hunting and the escalating trade

in living animals, bushmeat, and ivory

are serious problems for species conservation.

(troubling music)

But an even greater threat to nature in the northern Congo

comes from a different direction.

A gold mine on the edge of the Odzala-Kokoua National Park.

Financed by capital from China.

Built by Chinese workers.

The earth below the rainforest is full of valuable minerals.

The forest is completely destroyed,

and the soil is panned for gold.

No trees will grow in this devastated area for a long time,

and this is just a small mine which is testing to see

whether industrial mining would be profitable.

Gold prospectors have already been looking

around the IFO territory, but the timber company

was able to prevent mining.

Unlike the national park, it can offer things

that are also of economic benefit:

tropical woods and a lot of jobs.

Congo is a country that is busy developing itself.

It needs to use the natural resources to develop itself.

All we need to do is propose to the ...

national authorities a way to use those natural resources

in a sustainable fashion.

The alternative are really ...

mining, destruction.

And the logging companies can actually work

perfectly hand in hand with a national park

to develop conservation.

This place is called Paris.

The people here are celebrating the completion

of 22 wooden houses.

What's succeeded here is something

not achievable through appeals and penalties alone.

People have recognized the value of an intact forest.

They are benefiting from sustainable development

without destroying the forest.

(foreign language)

The forest is a source of life.

It must continue to live, continue to survive.

The people who live around the forest also need it,

for harvesting timber, for example,

for making use of all the flora and fauna that's here,

such as for herbal medicine.

For economic reasons, we must be allowed to carry on

using everything the forest provides,

but we must do so judiciously.

The logging village of Ngombe

has grown into a town of 10,000 inhabitants.

(upbeat Latin music)

People here can do more than just enjoy their leisure time.

There are two football teams, a hospital, clean water,

and free electricity for the staff of the timber company.

On Saturday afternoons, people get together

on and around Itien's terrace.

They've got dressed up to show

that they don't live in poverty and deprivation.

Elegantly turned out, they dance to the songs

of the best known musician far and wide.

(foreign language)

The people here live

as if they were in a city.

See how I'm dressed, suit and tie.

I live as if I were in the capital Brazzaville

or some other city.

I'm not discomfited when I meet a city dweller.

I live in Ngombe, in the middle of the forest,

and I live very, very well.

Many people in the region know him

under his stage name, Rufin Hodjar.

And he might sing in French, in Lingala, or in Spanish.

(upbeat Latin music)

Salsa!

(singing in a foreign language)

Salsa rhythms are not the only surprise

in the north of the Republic of the Congo.

The region could become a role model

for the whole of central Africa,

for the world's second-largest area of rainforest,

after the Amazon.

Nature conservation and tropical timber

bearing the FSC label,

national parks and sustainable forestry:

together, they represent hope for the rainforest,

for the benefit of humans and gorillas.

(upbeat Latin music)