Biography
Emmanuel de Merode is a conservationist and anthropologist who has served as director of Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 2008. He appears as himself in the 2014 documentary Virunga, which follows efforts to protect the park during the M23 rebellion.
Born on 5 May 1970 in Carthage, Tunisia, de Merode was raised in Kenya and studied at Durham University and University College London, where he earned a PhD in anthropology focused on Congolese conservation. He co-founded WildlifeDirect and has worked in the region since the 1990s.
