Preventing these plans the park gained further protection by an agreement sealed between DRCs president Felix Tshisekedi and Boris Johnson at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow.

[10][11] To improve the country's economic situation the government undermined that very protection by auctioning oil exploration blocks inside the park by the end of July 2022.

[13] In the early 1920s, several proponents of the European conservation movement championed the idea of creating a protected area in northeastern Belgian Congo, among them Victor van Straelen, Jean Massart and Jean-Marie Derscheid.

[2] In 2011, the British company Soco International was granted a concession for extracting crude oil in the surroundings of and in large parts of the national park.

Government officials supported exploration activities by Soco International mission members, whereas park management opposed.

[26] Following international protests, the company stopped exploring activities and consented to refrain from starting similar operations in the vicinity of World Heritage sites.

[27][28][29][30] In August 2015, the Minister of Tourism and Culture inaugurated four key initiatives including the tourist destination Tchegera Island and the Rugari–Bukima road section that facilitates access to the Mount Mikeno sector.

[33] Several armed rebel groups operate in the park, including Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda and National Congress for the Defence of the People (FDLR).

[34] In 2005, the European Commission (EC) recommended a public-private partnership between the country's government and the British non-governmental organisation African Conservation Fund.

The inhabitants inside the national park, whether native or refugees, rely on farming, hunting, fishing, logging and producing charcoal for their livelihoods, all prohibited activities.

According to a 2010 report by the United Nations Security Council, 80% of the charcoal consumed by the city of Goma is sourced from the park, representing an annual value of US$28–30 million.

Clashes occurred in 2015 when a local Mai-Mai group in Binza (north Bwisha) attempted to take back control of region, with the objective of reinstalling fishing activities and allowing the population to return, killing a park guard and 11-15 soldiers.

[42][43] On 22 February 2021, Italy's ambassador to the DRC who was travelling with the World Food Programme about 15 km north of Goma, Luca Attanasio, as well as Italian military police officer Vittorio Iacovacci and Congolese driver Moustapha Milambo, were killed in the gunfire when a militia that had kidnapped their convoy, and had brought them into the park, was met by park rangers who managed to free four people.

The national park's central sector encompasses about two thirds of Lake Edward up to the international border with Uganda in the east.

A narrow corridor of 3–5 km (1.9–3.1 mi) width along the lake's western bank connects the northern and southern sectors of the national park.

The southern sector stretches to the shores of Lake Kivu and encompasses Nyamulagira, Nyiragongo and Mikeno volcanoes with montane forests on their slopes.

[5] The plains of Virunga National Park are dominated by wetlands and grasslands with papyrus sedge (Cyperus papyrus), jointed flatsedge (C. articulatus), common reed (Phragmites mauritanica), sacaton grasses (Sporobolus consimilis), ambatch (Aeschynomene elaphroxylon), conkerberry (Carissa spinarum), paperbark thorn (Vachellia sieberiana) and kowai fruit (Coccinia grandis).

[50] All of the topi (Damaliscus lunatus jimela) cluster to the south of Lake Edward in the Ishasha Flats region, and regularly cross the border into Uganda.

[55] In the national park's northern sector, African leopard (P. pardus pardus), marsh mongoose (Atilax paludinosus), giant pangolin (Smutsia gigantea), tree pangolin (Phataginus tricuspis), crested porcupine (Hystrix cristata), Lord Derby's scaly-tailed squirrel (Anomalurus derbianus), Boehm's bush squirrel (Paraxerus boehmi), western tree hyrax (Dendrohyrax dorsalis), Emin's pouched rat (Cricetomys emini) and checkered elephant shrew (Rhynchocyon cirnei) were recorded during surveys in 2008.

[57] Of the Albertine Rift's endemic birds, Rwenzori turaco, Rwenzori batis, Archer's ground robin, red-throated alethe, Kivu ground thrush, collared apalis, mountain masked apalis, dusky crimson-wing, Shelley's crimsonwing, red-faced woodland warbler, stripe-breasted tit, blue-headed sunbird, regal sunbird, Rwenzori double-collared sunbird, handsome spurfowl and strange weaver were recorded in Virunga National Park's southern sector during surveys in 2004.

Non-endemic birds recorded include Wahlberg's eagle, African goshawk, African hobby, harrier hawk, common buzzard, mountain buzzard, hadeda ibis, grey-crowned crane, black-and-white-casqued hornbill, black-billed turaco, African olive pigeon, tambourine dove, blue-spotted wood dove, red-eyed dove, brown-necked parrot, red-chested cuckoo, olive long-tailed cuckoo, barred long-tailed cuckoo, Klaas's cuckoo, Diederik cuckoo, blue-headed coucal, Narina trogon, white-headed wood hoopoe, white-necked raven, white-tailed crested flycatcher, African paradise flycatcher, white-eyed slaty flycatcher, African dusky flycatcher, white-tailed blue flycatcher, mountain oriole, speckled mousebird, cinnamon-chested bee-eater, grey-throated barbet, yellow-billed barbet, western tinkerbird, yellow-rumped tinkerbird, cardinal woodpecker, olive woodpecker, black saw-wing, Angola swallow, Alpine swift, mountain greenbul, yellow-whiskered greenbul, common bulbul, white-starred robin, Archer's ground robin, white-browed robin-chat, African stonechat, rufous thrush, African thrush, olive thrush, grassland pipit, cinnamon bracken warbler, black-faced rufous warbler, mountain yellow warbler, brown woodland warbler, green sandpiper, Chubb's cisticola, banded prinia, chestnut-throated apalis, grey-backed camaroptera, white-browed crombec, black-throated wattle-eye, chinspot batis, mountain illadopsis, grey-chested illadopsis, olive sunbird, bronze sunbird, malachite sunbird, collared sunbird, variable sunbird, yellow white-eye, Mackinnon's shrike, Doherty's bushshrike, Lühder's bushshrike, northern puffback, mountain sooty boubou, tropical boubou, narrow-tailed starling, Sharpe's starling, baglafecht weaver, black bishop, grey-headed nigrita, common waxbill, black-headed waxbill, bronze mannikin, black and white mannikin, pin-tailed whydah, African citril, streaky seedeater and thick-billed seedeater.