A real eldorado in terms of the amount of methane it contains, Lake Kivu, situated between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda, also provides fish for the local populations. With major changes looking to take place in the next few decades, it is imperative we understand the mechanisms and empower the stakeholders who will have a role to play in its exploitation. Since 2002, one of the least studied great lakes in the region has gradually revealed a good number of its secrets to an international team of researchers from all fields. The report from the EAGLES project (1) (East African Great Lake Ecosystem Sensitivity to changes), financed by the Belgian Federal Science Policy (BELSPO), marks an end to this series of expeditions. It provides new keys to understanding how the lake functions and places its biogeochemical evolution in a historical, climatic and ecological perspective, at the heart of a problem where the sirens of economic profit are wailing on the one hand, and global warming forecasts are sounding the alarm bells on the other.

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(1)  East African Great Lake Ecosystem Sensitivity to changes final report, BELSPO, 2015