By Leocadia Bongben
According to the Living Planet Report 2026, the Congo Basin, home to forest elephants, great apes, bonobos and okapis, is under growing pressure from agricultural expansion, logging, mining, roads and other infrastructure that open and fragment forests. Unsustainable hunting and poaching further deplete wildlife populations. African forest elephant numbers have fallen by more than 60% over the past decades, driven largely by illegal killing for ivory and habitat loss, according to WWF wildlife inventory reports. Their decline also threatens forest regeneration, ecosystem services and carbon storage.
Against this backdrop, Nadège Nzoyem, WWF Regional Director for the Congo Basin, says nature loss remains severe and urgent. She made the statement at the launch of the WWF Living Planet Report 2026 during an online media briefing on October 7.
Nadège Nzoyem says, “Reversing this trend requires coordinated action across governments, civil society and other sectors, with Indigenous Peoples and local communities at the centre. Durable conservation depends on communities, traditional leaders and institutions having the authority, responsibility and tangible benefits needed to safeguard nature.”
However, she says the Congo Basin gives hope, citing the example of Cameroon’s Lobeke National Park, where recent monitoring suggests the forest elephant population has remained broadly stable over the past decades in a region that has suffered severe poaching pressure; maintaining a population is meaningful. In the Central African Republic, the Sanga-Sanga remains an important refuge for forest elephants and western lowland gorillas. WWF documented elephant camps and a newborn gorilla there in 2022. These are signs of continuing reproduction, although births alone do not establish a population recovery. And in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Salonga National Park was removed from UNESCO’s list of World Elephants in Danger in 2021, following improvements in its conservation. “The examples show that progress is possible. They do not mean that wildlife across the Congo Basin is recovering uniformly, but we are seeing signs that conservation work is working,” Nsoyem stated.
To protect those gains or early signs of progress and create the conditions for a longer-term recovery, the Congo Basin Boss stressed, “There is a need to protect connected habitats given that wildlife does not know boundaries and moves beyond park boundaries. Governments must plan roads, mining, logging and agricultural development in ways that safeguard important habitats and connections between them. Working across borders ensures strong cooperation between countries that must support wildlife monitoring, enforcement and the management of connected forests.” WWF work in the Sanga Tri-National between Cameroon, the Central African Republic and the Republic of Congo provides an established example of this approach.
Furthermore, conservation needs funding that lasts beyond a short project cycle and reaches local institutions and community initiatives. She said the good result, for example, in the Sanga-Sanga National Park, where elephant populations are now coming to the different bays, is because of decades, at least three decades, of intervention. Hence the need for long-term financing for conservation. “We cannot protect biodiversity effectively while financing activities that destroy its habitat,” Nzoyem stressed.
The Global Biodiversity Framework already commits countries to integrate biodiversity into planning and increase accessible conservation finance. Countries and donors should ensure biodiversity in the Global Biodiversity Framework is actually implemented and invest in people because conservation can last only when it is for people and wildlife. Investing in people will enable conservation because it depends on communities; it depends on traditional leaders and institutions having the authority, responsibility, and tangible benefits needed to safeguard nature. “People must help shape the decisions about forests on which their lives depend. Their land and resource rights, knowledge, and priorities must influence conservation,” the expert said.
The report indicates that Africa recorded an average 80% decline in the size of monitored vertebrate wildlife populations between 1970 and 2022. The finding points to the severe pressure on nature across the continent, but the report also shows that recovery is possible when conservation is sustained, communities have a direct stake, and the systems driving nature loss begin to change. The 80% figure for Africa reflects the cumulative average proportional change in the sizes of monitored animal populations at sites across the region and does not mean that Africa has lost 80% of all individual wild animals or 80% of its wildlife species.
Freshwater species are susceptible to a variety of threats due to changes in terrestrial environments, including pollution, overharvesting, and climate change. Terrestrial systems also exhibit a decline that is comparable to the global average, while marine systems exhibit a smaller decline, partly because certain fisheries have benefited from better regulation and monitoring. But it’s crucial to remember that other marine species, like whales and sharks, are still experiencing sharp decreases, according to the paper.
The most important message of the report is the dual reality – the southern African elephants, as well as the mountain gorillas, are actually stable or increasing, whereas the African lion shows regional decline.
According to the LPI, there has been a stark 73% decline globally in the average size of monitored wildlife populations over 52 years. The report also states that North America registered an average decline of 28%, while Europe and Central Asia
registered a decline of 23%. The steepest declines in monitored wildlife populations were recorded in Latin America and the Caribbean (95%), Africa (80%), and Asia–Pacific (49%).
The 2026 Living Planet Report cautions that encouraging recoveries must accelerate action rather than create complacency. Conservation interventions remain essential, but they cannot reverse biodiversity loss on their own while the underlying economic systems continue to destroy habitats and intensify climate change. Although the overall global trend is negative, half (50%) of the populations included in the LPI are stable (7%) or increasing (43%). However, declining trends outweigh increasing trends, resulting in an average decline of 73% for the global LPI.