Reporting by veteran environmental journalist Gerald Tenywa, published in the New Vision newspaper on April 30, 2026, is shifting public attention toward the silent fracturing of one of East Africa’s most ecologically sensitive landscapes.
A hard hitting investigative feature produced with support from the Environmental Defenders Community Media Program is generating significant attention among conservationists, regulators, civil society organizations, and frontline communities across the Albertine region and the wider Congo Basin.
The story, authored by veteran environmental journalist Gerald Tenywa and published as a two page special report in the New Vision newspaper on April 30, 2026, documents how artisanal and small scale gold mining has crept into Kyambura Wildlife Reserve, the Kasyoha-Kitomi Forest Reserve, and surrounding landscapes in Rubirizi District. The investigation traces cascading consequences for biodiversity, water quality in Lake George tributaries, and the transboundary elephant corridor connecting Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park to Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Within days of publication, the report has begun shifting how stakeholders in Uganda and the DRC discuss the future of the Albertine ecosystem. Conservation organizations have circulated the article across regional networks. Civil society groups have referenced it in renewed calls for stricter enforcement of Environmental and Social Impact Assessments. Community leaders in Kyabakara sub-county have cited the reporting as long awaited confirmation of grievances they have raised for years without a serious national hearing.
Pressure on regulators
By featuring direct responses from the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), the National Forestry Authority (NFA), and the Ministry of Water and Environment, the investigation has placed the burden of public accountability squarely on the agencies mandated to safeguard Uganda’s protected areas.
The NEMA Executive Director Dr Barirega Akankwasah’s commitment to “verify and give more information” about mining inside Kasyoha-Kitomi has been widely circulated. Environmental advocates are expected to follow up with formal information requests, parliamentary questions, and field verification visits in the coming weeks. UWA’s claim that previously mined sites in Kyambura have been “restored” has likewise been challenged by independent sources cited in the article, opening fresh space for scrutiny by Parliament, civil society, donor agencies, and the international conservation community.
The investigation also exposes a worrisome regulatory pattern flagged by the Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment, in which exploration licenses are quietly converted into full scale mining operations inside protected areas without proper Environmental and Social Impact Assessment. That single finding alone is now driving renewed advocacy for reform of Uganda’s mining licensing regime, and is informing similar conversations in eastern DRC, where artisanal gold extraction is even less regulated.
Amplifying frontline voices
For Environmental Defenders, the impact of this single story illustrates the broader theory of change behind the Community Media Program: investing in independent, place based reporting transforms isolated grievances into national policy questions.
“When a sixty year old artisanal miner in Kyabakara, a veterinarian who once led conservation in Queen Elizabeth, an ecologist tracking elephant routes, and a forest officer near the Congolese border can all be heard within the same newspaper page, you have something more than journalism. You have evidence, you have witness, and you have a public record that no agency can quietly ignore,” said Warom Samuel Jaryekong’a, Communication Director of Environmental Defenders.
He added that the organization is now working with Gerald Tenywa and editorial partners to plan follow up reporting that examines restoration commitments, the misuse of exploration permits, and the regulatory grey zones identified in the original investigation.
Cross border resonance
The article’s framing of the Kyambura, Queen Elizabeth, and Virunga corridor as a single transboundary system has resonated with conservation partners in eastern DRC, where Environmental Defenders works closely with the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICCN), Indigenous Mbuti and Efe communities, and rangers operating across the Ituri, Epulu-Aru, and Virunga landscapes.
“Wildlife does not recognize national borders, and neither do the pressures that threaten them. This reporting is a reminder that the destruction of habitats in Rubirizi today becomes a problem for Virunga tomorrow, and that protecting the Congo Basin requires journalism, science, and law working as one,” said Lonyo Sarah, program officer at Environmental Defenders.
Partners in the DRC have requested permission to translate sections of the article into French and Swahili for use in community radio broadcasts and in legal empowerment trainings with Indigenous land defenders. Environmental Defenders has agreed to facilitate the translation through its Terra FM community radio network, extending the lifespan and reach of the original reporting far beyond a single news cycle.
A model for the Environmental Journalism Grants initiative
The Tenywa investigation is among the early flagship outputs of the Environmental Journalism Grants initiative launched by Environmental Defenders for journalists in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Under that program, twenty journalists, ten in each country, are receiving grant funding, editorial mentorship, and digital and physical security support to investigate environmental crimes, land rights violations, and threats to environmental human rights defenders across the Albertine region and the Congo Basin.
Stories expected under the program will examine the impacts of oil and gas projects in the Murchison-Semliki landscape, land grabs around the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, illegal logging and mining in the Ituri-Epulu-Aru landscape, abuses linked to armed groups operating inside protected areas, and the lived realities of women, Indigenous Peoples, and forest dependent communities living at the front line of extraction.
By the end of 2026, Environmental Defenders plans to consolidate the published stories into a regional dossier that can be presented to policy makers, protected area authorities, regional bodies, donors, and human rights mechanisms in both countries.
Journalism as environmental defense
The ripple effects of this single investigation, from regulatory scrutiny in Kampala to translation requests in Beni, confirm a conviction long held by Environmental Defenders that journalism is itself a form of environmental defense.
“We believe that when forests are disappearing, when land rights are being violated, and when environmental human rights defenders are being silenced, supporting fearless and accurate reporting is not a communications activity. It is a conservation strategy, a human rights strategy, and a peacebuilding strategy. Gerald Tenywa’s work is exactly what we mean when we say that,” said Warom Samuel Jaryekong’a.
Environmental Defenders continues to welcome partnerships with media organizations, funders, regional networks, and conservation groups who wish to support the Environmental Journalism Grants initiative and the wider Community Media Program.
To learn more about the organization’s work, visit www.watetezi.org.
This update was produced by the Environmental Defenders Communications Team. The original investigation by Gerald Tenywa, “Gold Mining Threatens Uganda-DRC,” appeared in the New Vision newspaper, April 30, 2026, special report pages 14 and 15, and was produced with support from the Environmental Defenders Community Media Program.
Links: https://usercontent.one/wp/watetezi.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/NV300426pg15-1-1.pdf?media=1768216222 and https://usercontent.one/wp/watetezi.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/NV300426pg14-1-1.pdf?media=1768216222