Local Concerns about the Increased Insecurity In and Around Virunga National Park

More than 20 local civil society groups in North Kivu have expressed their concerns with regard to the surge of insecurity in and around Virunga National Park. It is with deep consternation that we learned today, Thursday, 24 April 2020, of the attack on a convoy of the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature… Read More

Save Virunga 2020: If You Hurt Nature You Are Hurting Yourself

“Because we do not love the earth and the things of the earth but merely utilize them…we have lost touch with life…We have lost the sense of tenderness, that sensitivity, that response to things of beauty; and it is only in the renewal of that sensitivity that we can have understanding of what is true… Read More

1.000 Reasons to Save Virunga: Building the Movement of Resistance to Oil

The Great Lakes that link Uganda and the DRC are home to some of the most diverse wildlife on the planet, as well as diverse cultures and people. They also contain oil and gas deposits that many companies want to exploit. Local communities are concerned about how the oil industry will affect their lives. After… Read More

Virunga and Our Planet Call for the Best of Us, Now

“We are capable of bold, redemptive, and generous action, and such action is required of us now.” Excerpt  from  On E.B. White’s Urgent Calls for Environmental Justice Megan Mayhew Bergman Revisits The New Yorker’s “Anonymous” Editorials …. We believe we are superior to other tribes and nations, but also other life forms. Human exceptionalism is… Read More

When Some Rangers Are Poor Role Models, Don’t Blame Them All…RIP Virunga

Last week started with the uncovering of an investigation by Buzzfeed that exposed the extreme violence and abuse committed by some rangers in Asia and Africa. The week ended with the death of Virunga Ranger Freddy Mahamba Muliro, killed defending the park, the wildlife and the fishermen communities of Lake Edward. This is the story about… Read More

Why is Effective Environmental Protection and the Rule of Law Important to Preserve Virunga?

Strengthening the rule of law is critical to protecting environmental, social, and cultural values and to achieving ecologically sustainable development.  Without the environmental rule of law and the enforcement of legal rights and obligations, environmental governance, conservation, and protection may be arbitrary, subjective, and unpredictable.  The environmental rule of law and robust institutions are essential… Read More

If governments really want to save Virunga and all these unique places, species from extinction…Then…

Cut Carbon Pollution, Show Political Willingness and Take on Corporate Power! PROBLEM “When we think about climate change, a recurring phrase is that we should ‘do our bit’ to reduce our footprint. Others harangue environmentalists for peddling ‘green guilt.’ Both of those, a positive and a negative, imply complicity: climate change is something we’re all… Read More

Virunga: Oil Exploitation, A Risk for Local Communities

By Esther Nsapu, correspondent in Eastern DRC In a consortium in Goma, seven environmental civil society organizations from the North Kivu province called “Alliance for Green Livelihoods” (GLA) are protesting against the proposal of the Minister of Hydrocarbons, to decommission some of the Virunga and Salonga National Parks to conduct oil exploration and exploitation. The… Read More

BREAKING: Virunga Communities Ask DRC President Kabila to Stop Oil Exploitation in Iconic National Parks

The communities bordering Virunga National Park (North Kivu) presented on Wednesday, September 26, in Kinshasa, a collective petition addressed to President Joseph Kabila to say “no to any initiative to degazette national parks Virunga and Salonga or decommission one of their areas to accommodate oil exploitation to the detriment of humanity and the local communities… Read More

Space for Nature and Virunga: How much of the planet should we leave for other forms of life?

Space for Nature, by Jonathan Baillie and Ya-Ping Zhang Editorial from Science published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. How much of the planet should we leave for other forms of life? This is a question humanity must now grapple with. The global human population is 7.6 billion and anticipated to increase… Read More

Women for Virunga: “We cannot tire or give up. We owe it to the present and future generations of all species to rise up and walk”

“We humans are only part of the ecosystem and if we kill part of the system we are killing ourselves, that is what we need to understand, that this ecosystem must remain as it is, it must be sustained, because in its survival depends our own” – Wangari Maathai Wangari Maathai (1940–2011) was the founder… Read More

Good News For Virunga: Mountain Gorilla Numbers Surpass 1.000

Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Rwanda, and Republic of Uganda release new census results. Rubavu, Rwanda, 31 May 2018 A recent survey documented 604 mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei), the largest number of mountain gorillas ever recorded in the transboundary Virunga Massif, one of the two remaining areas where this Critically… Read More