Gorilla Protection

We just received a message from the MONUC commander of battalion (the UN peace keepers) that he has managed to get us a clearance to go into the rebel held area to talk to their commander about the gorilla killings.  We will hopefully also be able to get into the park and look for the remains and find out if a second gorilla was killed, or even others.  We’re leaving at 5am tomorrow morning and should be back by nightfall.

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We have received more bad news from some of our rangers who live near Bikenge. Very recent gorilla remains were said to have been found about 1km from where the last was killed.  Local people reported that its body was cut up and shoved down a pit latrine (this terrible act was done to humans during the Rwandan genocide).  If this is the case, I suspect this gorilla was probably from the from the group Mapua - in which case there could be others…

With Robert Muir and six of my men, we tried to enter the rebel held territory to talk to the rebel commanders.  We were turned back at the first rebel checkpoint on the road.  Our only chance at this stage is to get through to higher command and get them to stop their men from killing the gorillas.   We’ll try again tomorrow.

 

  

We’re now almost certain it is Nkunda’s men… MONUC (UN peacekeepers) confirmed no one else has access to the area where the gorilla was killed - only MONUC… to date no mil, no NGOs no one has been up there since they occupied the area…

It’s now clear that lobbying hasn’t worked as the gorilla was almost certainly killed on the 12th… also clear that they know they shouldn’t be doing it as they are trying to hide the evidence.  We can’t work out the motive for the sudden spate of gorilla killings.  They don’t eat the meat, and they try to hide the evidence.  I have to go, sorry for the rushed report.  We’re going back in tomorrow and will update.

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Friday 12th January

This morning some of our rangers on patrol were attacked by armed men at Bivumo, about 4kms from the Kakomero patrol post inside the Park. They captured one of the rangers and took his weapon after tearing up his identity card. According to the rangers, these men were Rwandan soldiers. As soon as they returned to the patrol post they informed the Congolese military stationed at Rugari who, assisted by the rangers, went in pursuit of them. Unfortunately it was already too late - only traces were found. The ranger was later released and he is in good health.

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Just a quick note to explain how I manage this blog.  I try to keep it as up to date as possible on the day to day efforts of our gorilla conservation work.  It’s based on my experiences and those of the rangers who report in from the field every few days.  I write posts whenever important things happen but as I am from a French speaking country, and English is not my mother-tongue, I get some help from friends to translate and post emails that I send them.  Robert Muir and Linda Nunn, especially, work on this blog with me to keep it going.  For me it’s a opportunity to get the message out.  We were completely isolated during the war, and the possibility of using a blog makes a big difference.

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We’ve been in discussion these last few hours on how to proceed to stop the gorilla killings. There will be three actions:

We are going to recruit local community liaison officers to be our eyes and ears on the ground

We will launch an intervention with a large number of our rangers. I won’t say too much at this stage, but will report on how it went later after the operation

We’ll continue the wall maintenance work. This enables a large number of local community members to work with us, and it puts a little money into the local economy. It also means we can monitor the gorilla sector very closely, because were working with local residents who always know exactly what’s going on. It really works. I’ll write a post on this later.

Frankfurt Zoological Society and the African Conservation Fund are going to help fund some of it, but we need some more support. We’ve listed these needs on the donation page.

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The UN Peacekeepers have agreed to our request for an armed escort into the area occupied by rebels to go and retrieve the body of the dead gorilla.

We will go to Bikenge first thing on Monday morning with the Frankfurt Zoological Society to try and find the gorilla which was shot nearly a week ago.

We need to to try and identify which individual it was and then I want to bring it back to my station for burial.

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On the other side of my sector to the west of Rumangabo, there is a small forest at Tongo which is home to a group of Chimpanzees. I have just heard that they are now cuting down this forest and there have even been some reports that people are starting to eat the chimpanzees.

The forest here is small and the group of chimpanzees thought to be around 30 to 50 individuals. It has been difficult to count them with so many rebels in the forest. If the forest is cut down, they will certainly leave the park in search of food from the local comunities and we will have een more problems on our hands.

They are cuttng down this forest because aparetly it makes the best charcoal. They sell it in Goma for 20USD a sack as opposed to 12-15USD a sack for regular charcoal.

I now need to organise an operation quickly to protect the chimps and their habitat before it is too late.

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I am still unable to get to Bikenge to go and identify the dead gorilla. It is one of three possible solitary silverbacks that we have in DRC, and we really want to know which one it is that has been killed by the rebels. We will try and get UN protection so that we can go in and try and find the body which is only 600 meters away from a Patrol Post currently occupied by rebels.

I have just got back from Rumangabo where I talked with my rangers. They tell me that the military from the 13 battalion who occupy our Patrol Post at Bukima have entered the gorilla habitat and have started cutting it down to make charcoal. We must try and do something quickly to stop this or it could be a disaster for the gorillas. Bukima is the only area we are currently able to work, and we are following 2 of the 5 habituated groups currently in DRC. Normally we have 6 groups, but one of them has moved across to Rwanda.

I want to send my rangers in to stop the military from cutting down the forest, but last time I tried to stop them, they shot at me. Then they arrested me, threw me in their prison and had me flogged 65 times until I was bleeding. The military commander responsible has now been sent to Kinshasa, and I will meet with the new military commander and hope that he is more willing to work with us and control his men. We must try and do something to stop them.

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We just received news from Bukima that the Silverback from one of our habituated groups has been shot by a rebel group poaching in the Park.  The killing happened less than 600 metres from our abandoned patrol post at Bikenge.

A local farmer was ordered to help the rebels collect the meat of the gorilla.  He told them that the meat was dangerous to eat, and immediately informed us of the incident. 

  The killing of a gorilla is a disaster for us.  That the gorilla that was killed was a habituated silverback makes it worse.  The habituation was for tourism, which generates revenue for the local community - their support is one of the main reasons that we have managed to protect them.  But a habituated gorilla is extremely trusting, and will let a human being approach to almost touching distance.  They don’t stand a chance against poachers, unless we can protect them.

 

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In June 2004 we had a very similar crisis to the one that we are currently experiencing.  Ironically, the context was incredibly similar:  Laurent Nkunda provoked a rebellion, in South Kivu, and various people used the chaos to attack the park and its gorillas. 

 

 

In early June, about 8000 people came into the gorilla with machetes started cutting down the forest so that it could be sold off as agricultural land.  We responded extremely quickly with a campaign in Kinshasa and Kigali.  The response was fast and positive, and within three days the military intervened to order the people out of the park.  No shots were fired at the time. 

Interestingly, we got a huge amount of support from the local communities, who’s representatives suggested we build a drystone wall to mark the boundary the park, where it was being threatened.  Within three months, 2000 volunteers working for various local community associations had built a 20 km drystone wall around the area that had been under attack.  We raised 70,000 dollars, and distributed amongst the associations so that they could reward the people for their efforts.

 

Since then, the area has been left untouched and the forest is beginning to grow back.  Today, the situation is more threatening than before - the rebels are on our doorstep - but we never thought we’d succeed in 2004…

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