In February 2025, M23 rebels announced the capture of Goma, a key city in the Eastern Parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). A move that led to international peacekeeping forces to evacuate.
It is estimated that approximately seven thousand people have died in the DRC as a consequence of armed conflict so far in 2025. Three thousand in Goma alone.
Before the conflict escalated, reports from the DRC, and multiple UN sources, accused Rwanda of using the war to loot Congolese minerals, including gold and coltan, which are essential for mobile phones, cameras, and car electronics. Rwanda has consistently denied allegations of exploiting the DRC’s minerals.
Composed mainly of ethnic Tutsis, M23 are backed by neighbouring Rwanda and claim to be fighting to protect the rights of their minority group. In contrast, the DRC government in Kinshasa claims that M23’s real purpose is to control the means of production for the vast mineral wealth of the region. The protection of Tutsis, in turn, represents M23’s propaganda to camouflage its economic purpose.
The truth is unknown but likely lies somewhere in between.
Environmental catastrophe
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has analysed 59 ‘major’ armed conflicts occurring since the end of the Cold War. Of these, the majority were intra-state.
They conclude that armed conflicts exacerbate poverty, bring massive human suffering, destroy the environment, displace substantial numbers of people and create enormous problems for the international community.
Statutory bodies and private firms are now encouraged to provide statistics about their carbon footprint and waste management strategies. This has occurred as ecological consciousness has grown globally and ‘green’ politics has moved firmly into the mainstream. In tandem, ‘greenwashing’ has also become commonplace with the Volkswagen emissions scandal from 2015 the highest profile case of systemic overstating of environmental credentials.
However, militaries around the world are exempt from reporting their environmental footprint. This is despite the catastrophic effects of armed conflicts upon the environment in terms of pollution, contamination, and species decline. This before the psychological and physical impact of combat on soldiers is taken into account.
Furthermore, in the DRC those fleeing since the escalation of the war in 2012 have included environmentalists and land rights activists. These often highly critical organisations and individuals have been committed to illuminating global audiences as to the extent of the ecological decline that is occurring in remaining areas of significant biodiversity.
Gunfire, explosions, and the chemicals often associated with war have had immediate and long-term hazardous effects on flora, fauna and species decline.
The conservationists and activists living in the region had been an important source of information for journalists, the UN agencies and environmental groups as they seek to protect the planet’s remaining wildernesses and hold those responsible for harm to account. Without their information and insight, other voices unconnected to environmental responsibility have more space to promote their priorities to the press.
Virunga (2014, dir. Orlando von Einsiedel) is perhaps the most notorious documentary film made about the ecological plight of eastern DRC. It focused on the conservation work of rangers within Virunga National Park amidst the M23 Rebellion in 2012 and investigated the activity of the British oil company Soco International. Some of the footage and testimony captured in Virunga provides an illustration of the attitude of many to conservation.
The film was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Documentary Feature category, but important works like this on the DRC cannot be made now.
The scene when a Soco representative responds to a journalist’s question about the protection of the endangered mountain gorilla in Virunga National Park was the most shocking moment. “Unless [the mountain gorillas] are shitting diamonds and fucking pissing iron ore […]. Fuck me, it’s a monkey. Who gives a fuck about a fucking monkey?”
As such, while the legacy of this ecological crisis extends many years prior to the fighting of the last decade or so, it is undeniable that the recent escalation has severely limited the ability of international observers, NGOs, activist groups and journalists to monitor mining and logging operations and the destruction and pollution that they cause.
Coverage of the ‘other’ crisis
Without information from these valuable environmentalist sources, the now few international journalists in the region covering the conflict have focused almost wholly on its humanitarian cost. Indeed, journalistic values tend towards human-centricity anyway, with several academic studies highlighting an array of trends within climate crisis content and its lack of eco-centric approach.
Environmental activists are regularly treated disparagingly or with suspicion, particularly by the tabloid press, and must walk a precarious line to garner journalistic interest as a credible source. Some news organisations are fearful that corporations will withdraw advertising revenue if they are overly critical of these sources and this leads to self-censorship.
In addition, there has been a journalistic prejudice towards the plight of some animals – usually mammals – over others. The wildlife presenter Chris Packham, for example, has lamented on how much focus there is just towards the conservation of the panda above most other species.
Indigenous groups and their often more eco-centric views are also regularly overlooked within these debates.
Broadcasters struggle to accurately represent ‘climate change’, favouring dramatic images of forest fires or ice falling from icebergs (that’s just springtime in the Arctic!). Not to mention the privileging of supposedly technological solutions to climate change and a lack of criticality by journalists around the green industries.
Indeed, it was not until 2018 that the BBC issued guidance to its media professionals as to how they ought to report on climate change. Emphasising that the debate as to its happening should be moved from a position of legitimate controversy – where those in, for instance, the much-criticised fossil fuel or animal agriculture industries are invited to give their view – to a position of consensus that climate change is real and that this does not require debate. This editorial pivot does not guarantee eco-centric reporting though.
For this, we must turn to alternative sources. For example, Mongabay is an independent media organisation reporting on nature and ecological challenges. They have highlighted the vulnerability of the DRC to exploitation and subsequent environmental degradation for many years. They have also tried to shine a light on the cost of this war on the region’s biodiversity in the absence of protectors like national park rangers and other conservationists.
For Mongabay, Fergus O’Leary Simpson, Lara Collart and Joel Masselink have reported on the acceleration of tree cover loss in Kahuzi-Biega and Virunga National Parks since 2021. Using satellite imaging and their knowledge of the region, they describe how armed groups take bribes from those who wish to plunder these protected areas, the consequence being habitat loss and pollution, and the decline in numbers of mountain gorillas, elephants and other animals that the region is famed for.
Organisations like Mongabay have very limited reach though and often preach to the converted. As such, it is important that global media organisations also remain vigilant and focused towards environmental issues in this conflict and others. For the DRC the result is likely to be an environmental catastrophe that we will only be able to fully understand many years from now.
(Featured Image: “Kibumba09 (7550549990)” by MONUSCO Photos is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.)
