The periphery of Lomami National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) is experiencing intense and increasing hunting pressure, driven by both local subsistence needs and growing urban demand for bushmeat. This situation poses a serious challenge to sustainable natural resource management and underscores the need to realign protected-area policies with the realities faced by surrounding communities. In the absence of comprehensive ecological monitoring, this study used hunters’ perceptions to assess the current availability of mammalian wildlife around the park. From October to December 2023, surveys were conducted using a snowball sampling method with 60 hunters from nine villages bordering the park. Results show that hunting is a male-dominated activity, mainly practiced by individuals aged 30–40 years, with firearms as the primary tools. It occurs both in the park’s buffer zones and, alarmingly, within its core protected area. This practice has contributed to the local disappearance of key species such as African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis), African buffalo (Syncerus caffer), and African leopard (Panthera pardus pardus), and to the marked decline of several Cephalophus species. These patterns of overexploitation reveal critical weaknesses in current conservation strategies and point to the urgent need for integrated, community-based resource management approaches. Strengthening law enforcement, improving ranger support, and enhancing participatory governance mechanisms are essential. Equally important is the promotion of sustainable alternative livelihoods—including livestock farming, aquaculture, and agroforestry—to reduce hunting dependence and build long-term resilience for both biodiversity and local communities.

The urban trade in non-timber forest products (NTFPs) plays a key role in sustaining livelihoods in the Global South, while also suggesting potential pressure on resource supply systems. This study provides an integrated analysis of NTFP diversity, market structure, economic importance, and perceived drivers of resource decline in Kolwezi, a rapidly expanding mining city where such dynamics remain poorly documented. Data were collected through surveys conducted with 35 sellers across two major urban markets and 384 consumers from different neighbourhoods and analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics to examine patterns, associations, and socio-demographic influences. A total of 65 NTFP species were recorded, including 49 plant, 14 animal, and 2 fungal species, reflecting strong dependence on Miombo ecosystems. Medicinal (59.3%) and food uses dominate, with multifunctional species such as Bobgunnia madagascariensis (Desv.) J.H.Kirkbr. & Wiersama, Canarium schweinfurthii Engl., Terminalia mollis M.A.Lawson, Gardenia ternifolia subsp. jovis-tonantis (Welw.) Verdc., and Albizia antunesiana Harms, playing a central role in both household use and market supply. The trade is largely female-dominated (79.1%) and constitutes a major component of the informal urban economy, with monthly incomes ranging from USD 9 to 429.3, primarily driven by sales volume rather than unit price. However, the sector is constrained by structural and logistical limitations, including remoteness of supply areas, seasonality, and limited value addition. The perceived declining availability of high-use-value species, attributed by respondents to deforestation, mining expansion, and overexploitation, highlights perceived sustainability concerns. These pressures are perceived differently across socio-demographic groups, indicating heterogeneous understandings of environmental change. Overall, the results indicate a perceived mismatch between rising urban demand and declining resource availability, which may reflect an emerging socio-ecological imbalance between urban demand and perceived resource availability. Addressing these challenges requires integrated strategies that combine the domestication of priority species, the development of processing chains, improved infrastructure, and strengthened governance mechanisms. Such approaches are essential to reconcile livelihood support with the sustainable management of NTFPs in rapidly transforming urban landscapes.

The periphery of Lomami National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) is experiencing intense and increasing hunting pressure, driven by both local subsistence needs and growing urban demand for bushmeat. This situation poses a serious challenge to sustainable natural-resource management and underscores the need to realign protected-area policies with the realities faced by surrounding communities. In the absence of comprehensive ecological monitoring, this study used hunters’ perceptions to assess the current availability of mammalian wildlife around the park. From October to December 2023, surveys were conducted using a snowball sampling method with 60 hunters from nine villages bordering the park. Sociodemographic data and hunting practices were analyzed using relative frequencies and Fisher’s exact test. Frequently cited species informed perceived abundance and disappearance, while species similarity between zones was assessed using the Jaccard index. Results show that hunting is a male-dominated activity, mainly practiced by individuals aged 30–40 years, with firearms as the primary tools. It occurs both in the park’s buffer zones and, alarmingly, within its core protected area. This practice has contributed to the local disappearance of key species such as Loxodonta cyclotis, Syncerus caffer, and Panthera pardus pardus, and to the marked decline of several Cephalophus species. These patterns of overexploitation reveal critical weaknesses in current conservation strategies and point to the urgent need for integrated, community-based resource management approaches. Strengthening law enforcement, improving ranger support, and enhancing participatory governance mechanisms are essential. Equally important is the promotion of sustainable alternative livelihoods—including livestock farming, aquaculture, and agroforestry—to reduce hunting dependence and build long-term resilience for both biodiversity and local communities.

The rapid expansion of mining activities in the Katangese Copperbelt has led to the accumulation of large volumes of mine waste, which are increasingly shaping extractive landscapes. However, their spatial dynamics and morphological evolution remain insufficiently documented. This study analyses the spatio-temporal evolution of mine waste dumps in Lualaba Province (Democratic Republic of the Congo) between 2009 and 2025 to characterise their growth patterns, morphological changes, and spatial organisation. Mine waste dumps were mapped through multi-temporal interpretation of high-resolution imagery in Google Earth Pro and analysed using GIS-based spatial metrics and statistical approaches. Results reveal a strong increase in dump area from approximately 1900 ha in 2009 to more than 6400 ha in 2025. The dynamics shift from a phase dominated by the proliferation of dumps between 2015 and 2020 to one characterised by the expansion and consolidation of existing deposits after 2020. Mutshatsha territory emerges as the main hotspot of mining intensification, while Lubudi territory displays more irregular dynamics and greater morphological changes. Spatial metrics indicate a clustered distribution of dumps around active mining areas, followed by a partial spatial expansion toward new zones after 2020. Although most dumps occur relatively close to the road network, statistical analyses show that transport accessibility has only a limited influence on their size or emergence. Overall, these results highlight the importance of morpho-spatial monitoring of mine waste dumps for understanding mining landscape transformations and for supporting the spatial prioritisation of ecological remediation strategies.

The miombo woodlands of southeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) are increasingly threatened by mining expansion and associated land-use changes. Unlike previous studies focusing separately on mining impacts or land-cover change, this study explicitly quantified the combined influence of mining roads and settlements on forest degradation gradients in an emerging mining frontier. The study was conducted in the Mutshatsha Territory, a rapidly transforming landscape within the Katangese Copperbelt. Land-cover dynamics between 1998 and 2023 were reconstructed from six Landsat image series using Random Forest classification implemented in Google Earth Engine. Landscape transformation was assessed through landscape ecology metrics, while accessibility effects were quantified using spatial gradients around a mining exploration road and four villages representing contrasting accessibility contexts. Forest cover declined from 39.9% in 1998 to 12.5% in 2023, corresponding to an annual deforestation rate of 2.75%, substantially exceeding the national average for DR Congo. Simultaneously, agricultural land, built-up areas, and open vegetation expanded, while landscape disturbance increased and forest patch cromplexity decreased. Forest cover consistently increased with distance from both villages and the mining road, demonstrating strong accessibility gradients. Distance from villages explained up to 80% of the variation in forest cover, whereas road-distance gradients accounted for 71–94% of the observed variation. Forest loss along the mining road extended up to approximately 5 km from the corridor and intensified over time. Villages located along the RN39 transportation corridor exhibited substantially greater forest depletion than the more isolated village of Mpwita. These findings demonstrate that mining roads and settlements operate synergistically to structure forest degradation patterns through accessibility-driven processes. Integrating accessibility considerations into land-use planning and conservation strategies is therefore essential for mitigating forest degradation in rapidly expanding mining frontiers.

The miombo woodlands of the southeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) are increasingly exposed to mining expansion and associated land-use changes. However, the spatial association between mining infrastructure, rural settlements, and forest-cover dynamics remains poorly quantified. This study assessed long-term forest-cover change and fragmentation in relation to accessibility gradients around a mining exploration road and four rural settlements in Mutshatsha Territory, a rapidly transforming mining frontier within the Katangese Copperbelt. Land-cover dynamics from 1998 to 2023 were reconstructed from six Landsat observations using Random Forest classification implemented in Google Earth Engine. Landscape metrics were used to quantify changes in forest composition and configuration, while distance-based analyses assessed spatial patterns along accessibility gradients. Forest cover declined from 39.9% in 1998 to 12.5% in 2023, corresponding to an annual forest-cover loss rate of 2.75%, while agricultural and built-up/bare-soil classes expanded. Forest fragmentation increased, as reflected by greater patch subdivision and declining dominance and cohesion of large forest patches. Forest cover generally increased with distance from the mining road after accounting for year, indicating a significant accessibility-associated spatial gradient. Linear regressions showed strong statistical associations between forest cover and road-distance gradients (R² = 0.71–0.94), while village-distance relationships reached R² values of up to 0.80. These R² values represent the proportion of variance accounted for by the fitted spatial relationships and should not be interpreted as causal effects of accessibility. Forest-cover patterns also varied among villages and years, indicating that accessibility-associated gradients occurred within broader temporal and landscape dynamics. Overall, the results demonstrate substantial forest-cover loss and landscape reorganization associated spatially with accessibility gradients around mining infrastructure and rural settlements. These findings support conservation and land-use planning that considers remaining forest patches, landscape connectivity, and accessibility patterns beyond the immediate infrastructure footprint.