Conservation biologist Estrela Matilde has won the 2022 Whitley Award for her work to save sea turtles on the island of Príncipe in Africa’s Gulf of Guinea. The awards, often…
Smelters and manufacturers that use coltan, tin and tungsten in cars, mobile devices and other electronics can't be sure the minerals have been extracted without using children or forced…
The publication of an audit of forestry contracts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the first step in a $500 million deal struck between funders and the government last November,…
MAKOKOU, Gabon — In August 2020, the Massaha community in northeastern Gabon made a formal request to the government to declassify a logging concession allocated to a Chinese company, Transport…
A new investigative report details human rights abuses committed against Indigenous Batwa people between 2019 and 2021 in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park (KBPN) located in eastern Democratic Republic of the…
KINANDU, Democratic Republic of the Congo - A small group of residents from Kinandu village, 19 kilometers (11 miles) west of Lubumbashi, head into the miombo wooded savanna, decimated by…
Lazarus Nwobegai, who holds a government permit to harvest timber around Mount Cameroon National Park, knows perfectly well it's illegal to hunt the chimpanzees and other threatened primates that live…
When commodity prices spiked in the late 2000s, multinational agribusiness giants smelled profits. Eager to branch out of crowded Southeast Asian rainforests, some palm oil companies set their sights on…
“When we caught it, we all just looked at it and said, ‘You look ridiculous. Look how big your nose leaf is,’” Jon Flanders, director of endangered species interventions at…
LAGOS — Nigeria has for years failed to hold wildlife traffickers and poachers accountable for their crimes, despite federal and state laws that criminalize the killing and trading of protected…
Perched in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) near the borders of Uganda and South Sudan, Okapi Wildlife Reserve quietly encompasses some 14,000 square kilometers (5,405 square miles) of rainforest…
In 2021, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s biggest province, Tshopo, lost 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) of intact forests to fires. Researchers based in the provincial capital, Kisangani, suspect the record-breaking…
The Batwa Indigenous peoples lived in the Kahuzi-Biega forests of present-day Democratic Republic of Congo for centuries before Belgian colonial rule imposed formal change in 1937 with the establishment of…
When Alessandra Mascaro first recorded a video of a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes troglodytes) catching something in the air, putting it in its mouth, and then putting it on the wound…
LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of Congo — Armed assailants recently attacked the home of Congolese environment lawyer Timothée Mbuya. Mbuya, head of human rights NGO Justicia, is fighting a defamation lawsuit…
After a disappointing track record over the past two decades, carbon credit markets are back in style. Also known as “offsets,” carbon credits are having a renewed moment, as corporations…
According to communications consultant Meindert Brouwer, author of Central African Forests Forever, there are still opportunities to save the Central African — or Congo Basin — rainforest. Brouwer's 216-page, 17-chapter…
Conservationists using camera traps have obtained evidence that shows mona monkeys on the island of Príncipe off Central Africa are pinching the eggs of the Príncipe thrush, a critically endangered…
2021 was a year where tropical forests featured more prominently in global headlines than normal thanks to rising recognition of the role they play in addressing climate change and biodiversity…
For the Congo Basin, 2021 proved to be an up-and-down year. Funding commitments totaling in the billions of dollars were announced that would help forested countries preserve some of the…
This is the wrap-up article for our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four. In the first half of December, Mongabay…
This is the fourth article in our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Two and Part Three. The muddy cores that Ian Lawson and his colleagues…
This is the third article in our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Two and Part Four. The logging concession moratorium signed in 2002 was supposed to shore…
This is the second article in our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Three and Part Four. The announcement came in mid-2019: A pool of oil lay deep…
This is the first article in our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part Two, Part Three and Part Four. The notion seemed straightforward: A massive swamp in the Congo Basin…
Greenpeace Africa is spearheading calls to investigate the vice president and environment minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ève Bazaiba, over her alleged involvement in a series of illegal…
How do you develop your economy and provide services in a sustainable manner? That’s a central theme of the U.N. climate summit underway in Glasgow, and in few places is…
MAKOKOU, Gabon — Villagers in northeastern Gabon have embarked on a first-of-its-kind initiative to reclassify part of a logging concession as a protected area and hunting ground, citing its ecological…
At the age of 13, Marie Jeanne Bora Ntianabo already knew she wanted to be a park ranger. Today, she’s one of 250 rangers protecting Kahuzi-Biega National Park in the…
On October 6, Cameroon's minister of forestry and wildlife, Jules Doret Ndongo, will appear at a one-day conference focused on protecting the richly biodiverse forests of Central Africa. Yet his…