New publication: 'Miniseks. Hofmakerij bij ongewervelden'

On 6 February 2026, the PROCHE project organised a workshop bringing together researchers, experts and members of civil society to formulate recommendations for the future of institutional provenance research in Belgium and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The following day, 7 February, these recommendations were discussed at an open forum attended by institutional partners, the University of Kinshasa and the Institute of National Museums of Congo. This exchange provided an opportunity to present the proposals to the public, gather critical feedback and collectively enrich the discussion.

In the fast-growing cities of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, heavy rainfall creates thousands of large gullies. Houses are swallowed by these deep erosion channels, causing an estimated 12,000 Congolese to lose their homes each year. 

The strong decline of biodiversity in freshwater systems worldwide is a quiet crisis - one that few people are aware of. What happens underwater is a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’. Now, in a new Nature article, some 88 scientists and IUCN collaborators from all over the world who are involved in a twenty-year IUCN effort to assess various groups of freshwater animals have reported that a quarter of the planet's freshwater fauna is threatened with extinction.