Jul 13 2007
Protecting the park with the local populations and authorities
Every 3 months we hold a meeting at Rumangabo with local leaders and authorities to talk about protecting Virunga National Park and working with the local populations.
This committee is called Concd which stands for Convergence pour la Conservation et le Developement, Convergence for Conservation and Development. So it is a forum if you like, and traditional chiefs, military heads, police chiefs and Rangers all come together to address the important issues. This is a very important aspect of protecting the park as communication is paramount to any success and diminishing threats from poachers and charcoal burners and others. We find solutions to conflict.
Here are photos from the most recent meeting. You can see me addressing the group (in the second photo), and also the military, police and local population representatives. At the end we all had a group photo. I am at the front next to the police chief.
Daily news from the conservation frontline by Innocent and Diddy, and other Congolese rangers risking their lives to save mountain gorillas of the Virunga National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo
Paulin I hate to sound like this but do the meetings and the talks really help? Do the locals really understand what they have?? Do they really want to save the ecosystem that they have with the parks and the gorillas and such.. Maybe problems are more than I can see. I just cant help feeling that people really need to help you guys out more with government support..I dont know I am just talking and trying to really understand the situation that you are met with each day. You guys do such good work and I do wish for your safety for all everyday…steph