The rainforest contains eight World Heritage Sites and is critical to fighting climate change. But recent moves by the DRC government have conservationists worried. JOE SANDLER CLARKE reports for UNEARTED
The real nature of war and its impacts on people and environment can only be understood through its ecology, surgeon Gus Abu-Sitta tells Andre Vltchek: the causes of conflict, the dynamics that sustain it, the corporate and strategic interests bent on its perpetuation, the deliberate destruction of health provision, and the repeating cycles of infection, injury, poverty and human misery which have become a permanent reality for uncounted millions.
A 145,000 sq km area of peatland swamp forest has been discovered in the Congo Basin, writes Tim Radford, and it holds a record 30 Gt of carbon, equivalent to 20 years of US fossil fuel emissions. Now the race is on to protect it from damaging development that would emit that carbon over coming decades.
Industrial logging in the world's second largest rainforest is out of control, writes Raoul Monsembula, and spells disaster for both wildlife and forest people. There is an alternative: community forestry has just been enshrined in law. But resources must be committed to law enforcement in Congo and abroad, and to empowering forest communities.
Scientists have found that the world's second greatest rainforest, the Congo, is losing its green, writes Tim Radford. As temperatures rise and rainfall reduces, the forest canopy is taking on a browner hue, and this could be an early signal of worse damage to come.
Following the shooting of Virunga's chief warden last week, WWF is calling on UK oil company Soco International PLC to pull out of the Park and respond to allegations made in a new documentary premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival.
The UK Government is to examine the activities of London-based oil company Soco over alleged violations of environmental protections and human rights abuses in Africa's first National Park, home to 200 Mountain gorillas.
Congolese Police have cracked down on peaceful, legal protests to keep a UK oil company out of Virunga National Park, important for its 200 mountain gorillas.
An attack on a Park Ranger patrol in Congo's Virunga National Park has left 4 dead and 2 injured. The perpetrators? Rwandan militias linked to the 1994 genocide.
Rangers have detected gorilla families in Virunga National Park for the first time since fighting broke out between M23 rebels and government forces earlier this year
