Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian

Virunga National Park

latest news & developments
The resurgence of the M23 rebel group and other armed factions has led to increasing threats, forcing conservationists into a desperate fight to protect endangered wildlife while struggling with dwindling support and mounting insecurity.
AFRICA

War and wildlife: Congo park rangers risk lives to protect endangered species

Park authorities have been assisting ranger families, but the conflict and economic instability leaves them vulnerable

  • MG Reporter
3 min read
Wildlife protection activist Adams Cassinga holds the skull of a buffalo, indicating the existence of this species in the past in the Bombo Lumene protected area near Kinshasa © Conserv Congo
ALLIED DEMOCRATIC FORCES
Video

DRC stockpiles fuel illegal wildlife trade

Ivory and other wild contraband seized by authorities is being returned to the black market in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

  • Jonas Kiriko
15 min read
Gun barrels needed: Rangers from the Virunga National Park in the DRC. The park has contracted Truvelo to supply it with steel components to manufacture gun barrels. (Alexis Huguet/AFP/Getty Images)
AFRICA DEFENCE GROUP TRUVELO

Hawks in legal tussle with arms maker over billet seizure

Differing interpretation of the Firearms Control Act resulted in the seizure of a shipment of billets bound for the DRC from Durban harbour last week

  • Erika Gibson
6 min read
The mountain gorilla’s habitat is restricted to protected areas covering nearly 800 square kilometres in two locations — the Virunga Massif and Bwindi-Sarambwe — which stretch across the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. (AFP)
ENDANGERED SPECIES

Fin whale, mountain gorilla populations rise amid conservation action

The mountain gorilla has been moved from the ‘critically endangered’ category to ‘endangered’

  • Nina Larson
2 min read
Only 750 gorillas remain in Virunga National Park.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

The most dangerous job in Africa

DRC, the continent’s beautiful and precarious heart, sits once again upon a ticking bomb.

  • Tony Weaver
7 min read
CONSERVATION

Greens buoyant as oil firm halts testing in DRC park

The state must reaffirm that Virunga has universal value for all humanity, says the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF).

  • John Vidal
  • John Vida
3 min read
CONGO

Kidnapped SA worker freed in DRC

A South African working for a British oil company has been released unharmed after he was kidnapped in the volatile eastern DRC.

  • Staff Reporter
2 min read