The Congo Basin is one of the last green lungs on the planet. It is home to the second largest tropical jungle in the world, a green corridor second only to the Amazon and yet much less studied and, probably, just as threatened. Among the group of countries that share this vast region, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is home to 60%. An exceptional biological wealth which supports thousands of local communities and which, at the same time, undergoes a silent process of degradation and fragmentation.
As leading researchers have identified, the DRC, like many other African countries, suffers from a historic lack of scientific infrastructure and locally trained personnel. This absence limits the possibilities for conserving the immense wealth that sustains the country, at the same time as it perpetuates profound inequalities in the production of knowledge and in decision-making concerning biodiversity.
Added to this structural deficit is another factor: the chronic armed conflict which is shaking the eastern region of the country. Described as a “war for resources”, its origins are much more complex. The violence that exists today in eastern DRC – the deadliest armed conflict since World War II – is the result of a historical and political tangle that involves local, regional and international dynamics, which show no sign of letting up after decades.
The DRC, like many other African countries, suffers from a historic lack of scientific infrastructure and locally trained personnel.
This circle of insecurity, extreme poverty and massive displacement has a direct impact on the country’s biodiversity. Millions of people are forced to leave, increasing pressure on forests. People need wood – plant carbon – to cook, build shelters and survive. He needs meat to feed his family in a country where agriculture is practically non-existent. As a result, deforestation to produce plant carbon and the hunting of wild animals, including critically endangered species such as bonobos and chimpanzees, have intensified as the conflict intensifies. Added to these arrests is the illegal trafficking of species such as the African gray goji, internationally protected since 2017 but still captured and sold on clandestine markets. It is a spiral in which the humanitarian crisis fuels the ecological crisis, thus increasing the risk of emergence of emerging diseases at the global level, such as the recent mpox epidemic in the region declared an international health emergency by the WHO in August 2024.
When the magazine Science published an urgent call to train scientists in the DRC, we met precisely on the ground, during an expedition to the east of the country. This was part of a five-year agreement between Congolese and Spanish institutions. We knew we were working in virtually unexplored areas. The absolute absence of records on global platforms such as eBird or iNaturalist suggests this.
The expedition confirmed it: we found dozens of new bird species for the country or located far from known distribution areas. But more than these disasters, what struck us was the true scale of the impact of plant carbon extraction and wildlife hunting. These activities become an existential threat when conflicts force thousands of people to flee and rely on jungle resources to survive. All this is happening in a country of 109 million people, where electricity does not reach the majority of the population. Without energy, the jungle is literally everyday fuel. And without alternatives to animal proteins, wildlife becomes a primary food resource.
Science cannot thrive where fear reigns. And without science, the Congo jungle has no future
Upon returning from this expedition, the situation worsened. In 2025, M23 militias took over the Centro de Investigación de Ciencias Naturales (CRSN) neighborhood of Lwiro, near Bukavu. Researchers, technicians and students were forced to leave. Ongoing projects, with the support of the Doñana Biological Station and funding from the Psittacus Fund, are at a standstill. And with them, years of collaboration and effort to consolidate absolutely essential local scientific capacity.
In this context, Europe has taken its first steps. Programs such as the SAFE call of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), under the European Union, seek to temporarily integrate scientists from conflict zones. But its scope was still limited. The Lwiro CRSN, for example, was excluded because it did not have doctors on staff. We need larger programs, better funded and, above all, capable of strengthening institutions on the ground at all stages of the research career.
As we write this, the reality at the Lwiro Research Center continues to press on like the mortals on the front lines. The same day our letter was published in Nature Sustainability, which warned of this situation, M23 fighters burst into the center, looting all the vehicles and forcing staff to take refuge in laboratories, fearing that the solar panels and generators so difficult to make would also be taken away. Science cannot thrive where fear reigns. And without science, the Congo jungle has no future.
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