What does this say about the relationship between social justice issues in the world, lived experience and our self-expression? Whether we are artists and creatives or someone who enjoys interacting with music, paintings or design.

Its land holds immense mineral wealth, including copper, cobalt, gold, and coltan, as well as over half of the Congo Basin, one of the world’s most vital carbon sinks.

Pictured, Masisi is a town in North Kivu, DRC, about 80km north of Goma. It has been heavily affected by ongoing conflict, including recent clashes with the M23 rebel group.

“In twenty years, the DRC has seen the disappearance of more than 5 million hectares of forest cover and a still unknown number of species in one of the planet's last reserves of plant and animal biodiversity. According to forecasts by Greenpeace, it could lose up to 40% of its forests by 2050.

As the fourth forest country in the world and second for primary humid forests behind Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo now has 155 million hectares of tropical forest — two-thirds of its area and more than half of the immense Congo Basin forest, which covers six African countries.

The people living near the parks and in the forests, caught between the twin grip of precariousness and insecurity, survive as best they can in an environment ravaged by greed but also by need.

Until when will the riches of the Congo be a curse for its inhabitants?”

— Guerchom Ndebo, Photographer & Filmmaker

• United States: ~ 7.8 gha per person (per 2024)

• United Kingdom (Europe average): ~ 4.6 gha per person

• Nigeria (Africa average): ~ 1.1 gha per person

Global average is about 2.6 gha per person worldpopulationreview.com

What this shows:

• A U.S. citizen consumes 7× more resources than the global average and 7–8× more than someone in Nigeria.

• A UK resident consumes roughly 4× global average, but less than the U.S.

• A Nigerian resident consumes less than half the global average.
  

Why It Matters

This illustrates extreme disparities in consumption:

• High-income countries (like the U.S.) require far more land, water, energy, and produce more waste per person.

• The ecological deficit, where consumption exceeds sustainable supply, is much larger in high-consumption countries.

• For context, if everyone lived like a U.S. citizen, we'd need around 5 Earths' worth of resources

The DRC holds over between 60–80% of the world’s coltan reserves.

Kawele Palace was one of three opulent estates built by President Mobutu Sese Seko near Gbadolite, his hometown in northern DRC once dubbed “the Versailles of the Jungle”