Illegal mining inside the Okapi Wildlife Reserve in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) continues to spread, satellite data show, driving environmental devastation. Deforestation stayed at a near-record high…
In a historic 2022 ruling, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights found that the forced eviction of the Indigenous Batwa community from the Kahuzi-Biega National Park was a…
Carbon markets are among the proposed solutions for financing the protection of forests that sequester carbon and hold biodiversity. In the Democratic Republic of Congo alone, carbon credit projects cover…
LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of Congo — Our investigation begins at the Trinité Medical Center, less than 20 kilometers, or 12 miles, from the city of Kolwezi, in the south of…
Bonobos, human’s closest relatives, are classified as an endangered species. Groundbreaking research suggests their vulnerability might be even more severe than previously thought. In a first-of-its-kind study published in Current…
Some 200,000 people work in artisanal copper and cobalt mining the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Katanga region. Most of them scrape a livelihood from the soil with manual tools, often…
LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of Congo — An environmental activist in the Democratic Republic of Congo faces five years in prison over allegations that he threatened a logger allegedly engaged in…
With recent conservation efforts and the involvement of Indigenous peoples and local communities in managing protected areas, forest elephant populations are on the verge of stabilizing,in at least one national…
Michael Harvey recalls the moment he first saw a flock of yellow-crested helmetshrikes flitting through a cloud forest in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo: the first confirmed sighting by…
Revered by the Indigenous Mbuti and Efe tribes as a spiritual symbol and uplifted by the Democratic Republic of Congo as a national one, the okapi is deserving of a…
Two years since global policymakers agreed on the concept of protecting 30% of the world’s land and waters by 2030, there’s still little clarity on how achieving this goal will…
U.S. government agencies responsible for handing out conservation grants overseas still aren’t doing enough to protect human rights, according to an internal review. The review was commissioned by the U.S.…
A lost bird Everything we know for certain about the Itombwe owl comes from just two individuals: one dead for more than 70 years, and the other also most likely…
Growing up in the village of Domboshava in central Zimbabwe, Edwin Tambara, the African Wildlife Foundation’s director of global leadership, recalls how the surrounding Miombo woodland was a pharmacy, hardware…
LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of Congo — After a devastating human toll of 11 dead and several ill due to continued air and river pollution, the village of Kabombwa has definitively…
On May 24, 2024, clashes broke out between members of a local community and security guards at an oil palm plantation in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo…
Growing coffee in a forest with other trees and plants—a system known as agroforestry—can be as productive as growing it in a monoculture field, but it’s much less harmful, according…
LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of Congo — In Manono, a town in the province of Tanganyika, in the northern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) Katanga region, a mining…
In May 2024, local media in the Democratic Republic of Congo reported that Mbororo herders had moved from the northern province of Bas-Uélé to neighboring Nord-Ubangi, signaling that ongoing tensions…
Deep in the Congo rainforest, Edward McLester witnessed a spectacle few scientists have seen: a troop of golden-bellied mangabeys (Cercocebus chrysogaster) causing a ruckus, their vibrant underbellies flashing through the…
A rare bird known only from a single specimen captured in the eastern Congo Basin nearly 70 years ago has become one of the most sought-after species in the global…
In April 2024, above-average rainfall caused Kenya’s Ewaso Nyiro River to burst its banks, flooding the area and wreaking havoc for residents, including more than two dozen rescued chimpanzees at…
Scientists have warned that mining of the metals needed for the global clean energy transition could threaten Africa’s already beleaguered great apes unless strong conservation measures are implemented. Nearly 180,000…
In 2012, the description of a new monkey species from the Congo Basin with an unforgettable, humanlike countenance made global news. Now, a camera trap study reveals how the lesula…
While EV makers reiterate how their cars combat climate change, others note critical mineral mining environmental and social impacts on traditional people, and point to both supply chain and planetary boundary problems.
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network. LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) — On Oct. 13, 2023, on National Road 39, a police…
KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo — Every weekend between January 2022 and December 2023, members of the nongovernmental organization Ferme Don de Dieu (FDD) planted trees on farmland in Yolo…
Anthropologist Maud Mouginot recalls an encounter with bonobos early one morning in 2019 deep in the forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo that helped revise her impression of them…
JAKARTA — The tropics continue to lose primary forest at an alarming rate, with an area of tree cover half the size of Panama disappearing in 2023, new data from…
The global race to secure minerals critical to the clean energy transition is driving toxic pollution with severe health repercussions for communities living near some of the world’s largest cobalt…
LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of the Congo — Land-grabbing, lack of consultation, communities wiped off maps and impunity. These are the serious accusations made against the mining company Alphamin Bisie Mining…
LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of the Congo — On Dec. 2, Togolese authorities intercepted 38 monkeys at the airport. They were being sent from Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic…
