‘The soul of the city’: can Kinshasa’s last remaining baobab tree be saved?

Kinshasa’s last remaining baobab tree in an area earmarked for development in Gombe. Activists are rallying to try to save the symbol of the city’s past. Photograph: Hugh Kinsella Cunningham

The older inhabitants of Kinshasa can remember when trees shaded its main avenues and thick-trunked baobabs stood in front of government offices.

Jean Mangalibi, 60, from his plant nursery tucked among grey tower blocks, says the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s frenzied expansion has all but erased its greenery. “We’re destroying the city,” he says, over the sound of drilling from a nearby building site.