BUEA, Cameroon — To his fishing peers, Ojah Alfred, 45, is a fisher like they are. But to Cameroon’s scientific community, he is also a scientist — a citizen scientist.…
Across the central Congo Basin lies a bastion of carbon that scientists are just beginning to understand. First mapped only about a decade ago, the Cuvette Centrale peatlands are the…
The gunfire began just before six in the morning. At first, Christine Lain thought it might be a drill. Upemba National Park had run exercises like this before. Rangers…
More than four months after a wastewater spill from a mine in Lubumbashi, a city located in the DRC’s copper and cobalt belt, residents say they are still facing impacts…
To the cartographers of the modern conservation world, the forests of northeastern Gabon can appear almost empty. Satellite images show a deep green canopy stretching across the Congo Basin.…
Populations of Rüppell’s vultures have fallen by more than 90% over the past four decades. Knowing exactly where these critically endangered birds breed can allow conservationists to put protective measures…
In August 2025, Louis Nkembi, founder of conservation NGO ERuDeF, was abducted by militia fighters in Cameroon’s Lebialem Highlands. He was held for two weeks, hidden in a secret location…
Virtus Minerals, a U.S.-based firm backed by the Trump administration, is inching closer to acquiring the assets of Chemaf, a troubled copper and cobalt miner that works in the southeastern…
In December 2024, Turkish customs officers were flummoxed when they discovered a malnourished baby gorilla in the cargo hold of an airplane flying from Nigeria to Bangkok, transiting via Istanbul.…
On Feb 4, the U.S. hosted the Critical Minerals Ministerial, a summit bringing together delegations from more than 50 countries, including seven African countries, with the aim of securing access…
More than 220 people were killed in two successive landslides on Jan. 28 and 29 in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The victims were artisanal miners known as “diggers.” The…
In the early 2010s, Upemba National Park in the southern Democratic Republic of Congo was a case study in the dysfunction of some protected areas in Africa. Park rangers and…
As Mongabay deepens its reporting across Africa’s biodiversity and climate challenges, award-winning senior science journalist Aimable Twahirwa is bringing his decades of experience to ensure the region’s stories reach international…
Copince Ngoma, a member of the Bakouele Indigenous community, has relied on the lush green Congo Basin rainforest his whole life. His village’s forests, located in the Democratic Republic of…
Sea-level rise has accelerated across Africa in recent decades, thanks to global warming and, in particular, to the melting of ice sheets and glaciers, according to a recent study. The…
Between Nigeria’s Cross River and Cameroon’s Sanaga River lies one of West Africa’s largest remaining blocks of intact rainforest. Noisy groups of Preuss’s red colobus monkeys (Piliocolobus preussi) move through…
LIKASI, Democratic Republic of Congo — North of the limits of the Lukutwe community forest concession, two armed soldiers stepped in front of Valery Kyembo and his visitors. Wearing a…
Between 2000 and 2023, more than 6,000 African primates were traded internationally in 50 countries, according to a newly published report. Endangered chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and critically endangered western gorillas…
The story of the world’s tropical forests in 2025 was not one of dramatic reversal, but one shaped by accumulated pressure. In several regions, deforestation slowed. In others, loss continued…
Protected areas (PAs) are cornerstones of global biodiversity conservation strategy, yet their social impacts remain contentious. The prevailing narrative often pits global benefits, like biodiversity protection and carbon sequestration, against…
Dominique Bikaba’s family was once displaced from vibrant rainforests in the Congo Basin to make way for a sweeping national park. Today, a conservationist who also champions the protection of…
Across many parts of Africa’s Atlantic coastline, the sea is advancing several metres inland each year, destroying homes, infrastructure, farmland and heritage sites. Many coastal communities have already been erased…
The Congo Basin, the world’s largest tropical rainforest after the Amazon, is under mounting pressure. The Congo’s vast green canopy, stretching across six countries and storing more carbon than the…
After two weeks of negotiations in Belém, Brazil, the COP30 U.N. climate summit delivered mixed outcomes, Indigenous delegates say. The event saw the largest Indigenous participation in COP history and…
Africa’s great Congo Basin rainforest, often called the Earth’s second lung, covers an area about the size of India. Millions of people depend directly on the forest for food, energy…
Congolese traditional medicine is disappearing. Not due to a lack of usefulness, but due to a lack of space in an increasingly standardized medical world. Faced with the rise…
Fears of underinvestment in mitigation against oil spills, poor waste disposal and water overuse remain a major concern for environmentalists, even as Uganda insists adequate measures are in place to…
LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of Congo — Fifty African gray parrots have been released back into the wild in the Democratic Republic of Congo following their rescue from the illegal wildlife…
YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon — In the village of Ndji, old electrical cables are draped over rickety wooden poles, hanging so low in places, they touch the ground. These makeshift installations provide…
Moringa, most often associated with its native region of India, is also a valuable plant found thousands of miles away in the Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.…
Real-time monitoring has captured images of lionesses with cubs in Cameroon’s Bouba Ndjida National Park, but conservationists warn human pressure makes it unlikely all the cubs will reach adulthood. There…
LUBUMBASHI, DRC — African gray parrot populations in the central and northern parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo are declining. Data collected by patrols carried out by the Lukuru…
