The director of Africa’s oldest wildlife park – Virunga in the Democratic Republic of Congo – is in critical but stable condition after being shot several times in an ambush.  It happened after he met with a prosecutor about oil drilling at Virunga.

The gunmen attacked Emmanuel de Merode, a native of Belgium, as he drove unescorted from the eastern city of Goma to the town of Rumangabo, shooting him four times in the stomach and legs.  He made a lot of enemies in his line of work.

“He was protecting the resources of the park and preventing people from accessing those resources,” said Cosma Wilungula, the secretary-general of the Congolese Institute for Conservation and Nature.

De Merode had gone to Goma to present sensitive information about oil exploration at Virunga to the prosecutor.  The British oil company Soco International is exploring for oil at Virunga, over the strong objections from environmental organizations.  Soco has denied involvement:

“Soco does not condone violence of any kind and makes it clear that any suggestion linking Soco to this crime is completely unfounded, defamatory and highly inappropriate,” read a statement from Soco International.

Virunga National Park in eastern DRC is home to about 200 of the world’s 790 remaining Mountain Gorillas.  It’s on the UN list of World Heritage sites in danger.

More than 130 park rangers have been killed in Virunga since 1996.