In eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in central Africa, protecting nature can cost you your life. For years, rangers operating in parks such as Virunga and Kahuzi-Biega have worked amid armed groups, illegal natural resource trafficking, community tensions, and chronic violence that has already claimed the lives of hundreds of their colleagues. Yet despite their central role in protecting biodiversity and some of the world’s most important forests, many continue to work with little support, low salaries, and highly precarious conditions. For Emmanuel Bahati Lukoo, this reality is deeply personal. A former Virunga ranger who is now an official at Kahuzi-Biega National Park, he survived a deadly ambush in 2018 by a community-based militia group known locally as Mai-Mai. Several of his colleagues were killed in the ambush. Shot, psychologically traumatized, and later prosecuted in a military court in a case linked to park protection, he could have walked away. Instead, Bahati chose to tell his story in a book titled Conservation at the Cost of My Youth: The Survival of a Ranger, a raw account of the sacrifices, fears, political pressures, and often invisible realities faced by forest rangers in eastern DRC. In this interview with Mongabay, Emmanuel Bahati Lukoo reflects on his journey, the ambush that nearly killed him, the trauma experienced by rangers, the conflicts between conservation and local community survival, and the political interference complicating the protection of protected areas. Beyond the personal story, however, his testimony is also a call to action: to finally recognize…This article was originally published on Mongabay