A deep look inside the Congo River Basin

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: ‘A deep look inside the Congo River Basin’

Marc Filippino
Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Tuesday, July 4th, and this is your FT News Briefing.

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Marc Filippino
The UK’s financial watchdog is worried about lagging savings rates. The internet brand Yahoo wants to return to the public markets. And an FT investigation details sexual assault allegations against a celebrated architect. Plus, the FT’s Africa editor spent some time in the second-largest rainforest in the world. In the first part of a four-part series, we’ll take a deep look into the Congo River basin. I’m Marc Filippino and here’s the news you need to start your day.

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Marc Filippino
Sources tell the FT that the Financial Conduct Authority is going to meet with UK lenders on Thursday to address a profiteering claim. There are accusations flying around that top bankers at HSBC, NatWest, Lloyds and Barclays are keeping savings rates low, even as interest rates and mortgage rates rise. Sources tell the FT that the FCA and the executive’s plan to talk about how to price cash savings at the meeting. The sources also say it could result in a savings charter or set of commitments.

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Marc Filippino
Over the next few days, the News Briefing is going to Central Africa into the world’s second-biggest rainforest. The Congo River basin sprawls across six countries. It’s home to thousands of species of tropical plants and incredible wildlife. This rainforest is described as the lungs of the world because it absorbs so much carbon dioxide and emits so much oxygen. And it’s under threat. Today, we’ll be taking you there to meet some of the conservationists working to protect this valuable patch of earth. Our guide is the FT’s Africa editor, David Pilling. 

David Pilling
I’m travelling up the Sangre River. It’s the main tributary of the Congo River. It’s as brown as melted chocolate and wider than the Thames. Thick greenery presses in on all sides. At the moment we’re in the Republic of Congo. My final destination is across the border in the Central African Republic. I’ve come to experience the largest tropical rainforest in the world after the Amazon. This rainforest is threatened by poachers and loggers trying to exploit its resources, but so far it remains in better shape than its Brazilian counterpart. I’m here to meet the people who are trying to protect this ecosystem. I arrive at a pocket of jungle called Nouabalé-Ndoki. It’s 4000 square kilometres of virgin forest. Areas outside the park have been logged, but inside there are no roads and no record of settlements. People have lived here with hunter gatherers for millennia. These people are called the Baka. They were long known as pygmies. But the Republic of Congo banned that term because the Baka were subject to discrimination and exploitation. There are places where even they have never got to. I’m hoping to spend time with the Baka. To be honest, I’d also come for adventure. My first stop is an encampment with wooden and concrete structures. I’m here to meet scientists like Ben Evans. 

Ben Evans
I’ve been there since early 2021, but I’ve been in Congo since about 2015. 

David Pilling
He’s a director of this park, which is run by an American NGO, the Wildlife Conservation Society, which manages the Bronx Zoo in New York City. It operates on behalf of the government here. 

Ben Evans
One of our big tasks is pure protection work. The main threat is hunting of wildlife, particularly illegal killing of elephants, which are protected under Congolese law and for ivory trade, which has been a big problem since sort of around 2010. And the other issue is kind of almost a food security issue, but is the commercial sort of trafficking of wild meat so monkeys, antelope and wild pigs. And that is often used to feed urban centres like Kinshasa, which is, you know, tens of millions of people, but that the reach of big cities like that comes all the way up to these remote forest sites. 

David Pilling
Evans hires and works closely with Congolese rangers. And one of the most experienced is Bleck Mabiala. 

Bleck Mabiala
Here we have eco-gas, this is our advance post too, and we are planning to deploy two units this morning. 

David Pilling
Blake is sitting in a control room looking at computer screens. Little dots on the screen indicate where rangers are located around this vast forest in real time.

Bleck Mabiala
It’s a tough life, you know, like a committed conservationist. Sure, yeah. They’re like dedicated. Yes. Anti-poaching is really tough job. You know, poachers they have guns. And the park is really vast and there are lots of trails so difficult to monitor. 

David Pilling
A big challenge is that the forest is so dense. 

Ben Evans
Here in the park, you can pass within 20 metres of someone and not see them, if they’re not making any noise. So we have to do a lot of guesswork and a lot of really trying to be intelligent with our patrolling and to make sure that we’re sending people to the right places. We can’t just kind of stumble around blind and it’s a big forest. Also, access is difficult. The park has no roads. We can’t drive in the park. We have to do everything on foot or by boat. 

David Pilling
So I think you get an idea of what these rangers and scientists are up against as they research the animals here and fend off poachers. Another threat to the wildlife is deforestation. Unless the whole ecosystem is intact, the incredible wildlife here just simply can’t survive. 

Marc Filippino
Tomorrow, in part two of our four-part series on the Congo, David will meet some of the scientists who research lowland gorillas. The region is home to one of the biggest populations of these great apes.

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Marc Filippino
Yahoo wants to go back on the public market. CEO Jim Lanzone told the FT that Yahoo is ready financially, that it has a great balance sheet and it is very profitable. Lanzone was brought in after Verizon spun out the group in 2021 to re-establish Yahoo as an independent company. Yahoo first went public in 1996. It has lost ground compared to other companies from the dotcom era like Google or Amazon. But Lanzone says Yahoo still ranks in the top five sites globally in terms of total traffic.

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Marc Filippino
David Adjaye is a Ghanaian-British architect whose work has been praised around the world. Maybe most notably, he was called the genius by former US president Barack Obama after designing the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC. But three women who worked for Adjaye have accused him and his firm of different forms of exploitation from alleged sexual assault to a toxic work culture. These allegations have gone unchecked for years. FT management editor Anjli Raval and her associate arts editor Josh Spero, just broke the story about these allegations and they join me now. Josh, can I ask you first, how did you come across the story? 

Josh Spero
I was approached 18 months ago by a contact I had made some while before, who was herself a friend of one of these women. Now, these women had found each other after working for Adjaye. They had known each other a little bit during, but they really came together afterwards when they shared their stories, their allegations with each other. That was 18 months ago. A year ago, Anjli and I started working together on this. And it’s been a pretty rocky road to be able to get this far because it’s a very serious set of allegations. And we have had to take them extremely seriously and do all of our research before we able to publish them. 

Marc Filippino
Now we should mention to our listeners that Adjaye has denied all of these allegations. Anjli, I want to ask you, you worked on the story, too. Why is it important to expose and write about this topic? 

Anjli Raval
I mean, Adjaye is one of the most prominent people in the arts world. So many honours have flowed his way and those who work for him really believe in his mission about transforming architecture in Africa, but also this pursuit of excellence. But these allegations about his private life really run counter to this public persona. Now, the three women who tell their stories hope that no one else will have to share the same experiences, which is why they’re coming forward. And obviously, yes, while Adjaye denies all of this allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse and any criminal wrongdoing, they were serious enough that we felt we had to bring their stories to you, our readers and listeners at the FT. 

Marc Filippino
Thanks, Josh. Thanks, Anjli.

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Marc Filippino
You can read the full story for free and for a limited period this summer, all the articles we highlight will be free-to-read for News Briefing listeners. Check the links in our show notes to enjoy more of the FT’s excellent international journalism with no paywall. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Make sure you check back tomorrow for the latest business news.