Green Afia Magazine makes environmental education its core mission: An interview with Hervé Mukulu

Reported by Laura. Originally published by Global Voices on 12 April 2025. This is an archived report; dates and circumstances refer to its original publication.

In Africa, pioneering media outlets play a key role in combating environmental degradation and climate change.

Environmental protection is everyone’s responsibility. As such, politicians , civil society actors , experts, scientists , climate activists , young people, and various leading figures all fight for climate justice on the African continent. Media outlets rarely take part. However, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the French-language media platform Green Afia has made green education its core mission. In a WhatsApp interview with Global Voices, Hervé Mukulu, the editor-in-chief of Green Afia, explained his vision for climate justice.

Jean Sovon (JS): What sets you apart from other media outlets in the DRC ?

Hervé Mukulu (HM) : Green Afia Magazine is a media outlet committed to green education. This education involves reports, investigations, studies, awareness-raising, and brainstorming sessions on the environmental and health issues within the Congo Basin. Our topics of interest are climate change, biodiversity, health, agriculture, and all things environment-related.

Our distinguishing feature is that we are a data journalism media outlet focusing on environmental issues. The issues and sustainable solutions we have to report are best understood when presented as figures, maps, and graphs.

JS: What are your biggest challenges, and how do you overcome them?

HM : It takes time to cover all aspects of the environmental crisis. Contacting experts, gathering data, and obtaining information that requires cross-referencing takes time. Only providing one version of the problem can prove counterproductive. Learning about the efforts undertaken to resolve these issues also takes time. Conducting investigations requires not only time but also financial and technical resources. Our passion for solutions journalism motivates us. We make the necessary effort to contact people, obtain resources, and access data, sacrificing our time and money for our reports.

JS: In DRC, what role do media outlets play in climate change?

HM : In a country like DRC in the Congo Basin, where conflict is the main news, the fight for survival means security reporting commands the lion’s share of citizen news requirements. However, we have shown that everything is connected. The economic, social, and security challenges this crisis poses also raise environmental challenges that require our attention. We report the local sustainable solutions since local action can have a global impact when dealing with government service shortcomings.

At Green Afia, we have seen firsthand how climate change action isn’t external but internal and local. That’s why we report local solutions, making them known to the general public. Our reports always have an educational purpose: to inform and educate our readers about environmental issues. Local knowledge and adaptations that address various issues exist in every field. Sharing this knowledge will help others.

JS: What is your vision for climate justice in Africa? And what are you doing to achieve it ?

HM : Although they are the lowest polluters, developing countries pay a heavy price for climate change. They don’t have sufficient resources to take action and implement the necessary adaptive measures to mitigate its effects. Developing countries and small island nations are doubly impacted by other countries’ shortcomings. The lion’s share of carbon credits should go to non-polluting developing countries.

Rather than having a victim mindset, these countries know it isn’t necessarily up to the major polluters to take action to manage the plastic waste we willingly import. Anyone can provide a solution to any problem. It is possible to implement local management solutions if there is a willingness to do so. If these small local actions catch on, they can have a significant impact. Although climate change poses major challenges for the African people, such as floods and heat waves, high-income countries are well-equipped to cope. However, in Africa, especially in rural areas, it even remains challenging to receive treatment for malaria. Local efforts, therefore, merit support.

It is our duty to support local efforts. Green Afia Magazine focuses on the Congo Basin region, which contains the world’s second-largest tropical rainforest after the Amazon and plays a key role in global climate regulation. However, it also faces several climate change-related challenges, such as biodiversity conservation. Responsible conservation considers the needs of the Indigenous people, who rely solely on nature for their day-to-day survival. This situation requires us to educate and raise awareness among all involved: the local community, which will have a primary role, the government institutions, and NGOs whose staff sometimes take advantage of the less educated population’s lack of knowledge, supposedly for nature conservation. Enhancing Indigenous knowledge to facilitate local solutions that fulfill the overall objectives is especially important.

JS: What are your greatest achievements ?

HM : Our greatest achievement is, first and foremost, the feedback we receive from our readers, who say they have learned much from our articles and appreciate the recognition we give to their work, achieving the desired results. Writing articles that win awards and prizes is another great achievement.

Image credit

Cover context image: Ville de Goma vue aérienne. This archival or illustrative image is not presented as a photograph of the reported event. Creator: Dieulaisevambesa. Original image and full attribution. License: CC BY-SA 4.0. Resized and compressed for web display; the image retains its stated license.

Publication credits

Written (Français) by Jean Sovon Translated (English) by Laura. Original report published by Global Voices. Republished under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. Adapted for Gistmax: formatting simplified; duplicate original-language quotations and embedded media omitted; cover photograph replaced. This republication does not imply endorsement of Gistmax by the author or publisher.