The African grey parrot is one of the endangered species threatened by illegal wildlife trade. Photo: José Luis Tella

Scientists from the Doñana Biological Station and various Congolese institutions are sounding the alarm over the severe impacts that armed conflicts in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo are having on the region’s biodiversity. Their warnings, recently published in a correspondence letter in Nature Sustainability, highlight how internal displacement, food insecurity, and economic and political instability are feeding a vicious cycle that could push Congolese biodiversity toward irreversible collapse.

The Congo River Basin contains the world’s second-largest continuous tropical rainforest after the Amazon. It harbours exceptional biodiversity and sustains millions of people, yet it remains one of the most understudied tropical regions on the planet.

During a recent scientific expedition in the country’s east—part of a five-year cooperation program between Congolese institutions and the Doñana Biological Station—the team recorded numerous bird species either new to the country or outside their known ranges, revealing the immense biological richness that remains unexplored in the region.

However, they also documented particularly severe and underestimated threats, exacerbated by armed conflict, which forces millions of people to depend directly on local natural resources for survival. Among these threats is the charcoal production, the main energy source for much of the population and one of the leading drivers of forest degradation. Another is the hunting of wildlife for human consumption, including critically endangered species such as bonobos and chimpanzees, driven by mass displacement, food insecurity and the absence of developed livestock systems. In addition, political and economic instability has fuelled the illegal wildlife trade, including threatened species such as the African grey parrot.

The situation deteriorated further after the recent escalation of violence in January 2025, when armed groups took control of the area surrounding the CRSN-Lwiro research center, forcing staff to flee. The interruption of scientific projects and the loss of research continuity represent a major setback for conservation efforts in a region where international partnerships are essential.

The authors issue an urgent call to the international community to invest in conflict resolution and in strengthening local scientific capacity. They highlight the recent European program “Security Action for Europe,” which provides support for researchers from conflict zones, as a positive example. However, they warn that its scope remains insufficient: institutions such as CRSN-Lwiro were excluded because they lacked local PhD-level researchers at the time, demonstrating the need to further reinforce local scientific capacity and support researchers at all career stages.

Reference

Pedro Romero Vidal, Luis Flores, Prince Kaleme, radar Nishuli, José L. Tella. Armed conflicts and biodiversity research. Nature Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-025-01699-2