Feb 01 2008
Life at Rumangabo
I am currently at Rumangabo park headquarters working on the anti-charcoal patrols and other duties. Since the signing of the peace accord a couple of weeks ago the security has improved at our park station. We have not yet brought back any of the equipment we evacuated in November and December, but at least we cannot hear shelling or bombing in the Gorilla Sector. So all in all things are looking a little better.
Here is the Mikeno volcano rising up. The gorillas live on the flanks of the volcano. The house here is in our park station. The first door on the right you see is Innocent’s house. My house is just opposite.
The Rangers’ children play football in the afternoons after school.
Rob Muir from FZS is doing some construction up at Rumangabo because he wants to move his office up here and leave Goma. The truck had a bit of an accident!
While on patrol we came across this recently slaughtered bushbuck. The animal had left the forest just briefly, and was killed by local villagers. The head had already been cut off by the time we got there.
Augustin with the slaughtered animal.
The anti-charcoal patrols have continued relentlessly. We are now up to 56 tons of confiscated charcoal, up from 40.8 last week. We are very proud of this achievement. The fight against the charcoal mafia is one of the main threads of WildlifeDirect and a new blog called Ending Charcoal has been started up by Rob in the US who is helping out enormously to find a solution to this fuel crisis.
We continue to await news of the Gorilla Sector. We are still waiting for peace to become more of a possibility (or even a reality) before we venture back in. On Sunday it will be FIVE MONTHS since we were last in there checking on the Mountain Gorillas. It is years and years since that has happened.
Diddy
(PS here I am with my wife Justine and 2 of my children)
Technorati : congo, drc, iccn, wildlifedirect
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
Can’t believe it has been 5 months..just scares me for the gorillas….the volcano is beautiful…thanks for sharing…still praying these guys are ok! Take care..
Five months … I thought this would be over in a couple of weeks. Such a beautiful country and so much natural wealth that seems wasted on war. Thanks for all the great photos, Diddy.
s.
What a waste to have such beauty in turmoil constantly — I hope we can get news of our wonderful gorillas soon - great pics and thanks for posting.
hope the gorillas are safe well done for getting this far hope everything will be well keep safe
Small steps. I’m glad you are back at the headquarters. Hopefully the peace will hold.
Thank you Diddy for sharing the pictures. That volcano is beautiful. So now that the peace agreement has been signed, you are back at Rumangabo and can’t hear any shelling or bombing, what are the signs you will be looking for that will tell you “Okay, now we can go back in?” Lisa
Shelling, yes, I expected that…but bombing as well, I had no idea that had been occuring there. You guys are our eyes and ears there, and you put your lives on the line everyday as well as your families. I wonder what was the purpose of killing that poor animal and then just leaving it there. Were the villagers trying to send some sort of message? This is a stupid question, is there any chance some of your gorillas have made it closer to the Rwanda sector of the park. Have the rangers in Rwanda spotted gorillas unknown to them?
I really hope you can go back in soon.
Greetings to you all at Rumangabo.
Diddy, thank you for the post…jeez, five months, seems like forever. Hopefully you can get back in there soon.
Thank you Diddy for the up date. So sorry about the bushbuck, The killers even do not touch the meat, its insane what they are doing! Like the recent case of a female indian rhino shoot twice in Kaziganga and her horn cut off while she is still alive! She lived 35 hours more in agony before finaly died, the poachers killed her offspring too. The men are capable of perform infinite cruelty, abominable and coward practices against animals.
I mean “Kaziranga” sorry.
Can someone please explain what the villagers think they are gaining by slaughtering a young gorilla?
My concern with the charcoal patrols is that they might provoke more execution style killings as was the case last year. I assume that it has been established that charcoal was the motive, or is that still uncertain?
F.J., that is so sad about the Rhino. My god, the insanity never stops does it. Why? Why do they have to do such horrible things to each other and the animals over there. Lisa
Dear Lisa, yes, its an insanity. Aparently, the poachers were already arrested at this time in a nearby villeage. They seems to form part of a guerrilla that is slaughtering indian rhinos to exchange their horns for weapons. Last year more than 20 rhinos were killed and four more in this year only in Kaziranga. I can´t to stop thinking about the uncertain future for domestic and wild animals in a world full of such garbage-sub-humans that are capable of this kind of miserable and cowards acts, they are a shame for every bit of decency and moral that could exist in a species that call itself as “sapiens”
Poor rhinos, they have such poor eye sight, they don’t stand a chance. What is really disgusting is the complicity of African governments with these heinous illegal activities, snaring, poaching, and poisoning of all wildlife. I too fear that there may be further retaliation against the gorillas. God, I hope many of them made it to the Rwandan sector of the park. After all, 5 months is a long time, more then enough for time to escape.
I meant to say also I wish people that kill animals such as the one above would at least try to use all of the animal’s parts and not leave it there like that….poor thing…
Just heard there was an earthquake in Rwanda…hope everyone here is ok…….and the gorillas of course! Saying a lil prayer…let us know!
Dear Emmanuel,
I hope that people and wildlife of DR Congo and neighbor Rwanda are well. Please update us about earthquakes and, if possible, about what’s happening in Gorilla Sector. Thank you.
According to the BBC, the earthquake affected both Rwanda and the DRC. 39 people reported dead so far. Reports are very sketchy. Will go to ALLAFRICA NEWS to find out more.
There were 2 quakes, hours apart, one in the DRC magnitude 6 and the other in Rwanda, magnitude 5. Reuters reports. Remember guys, they are about 8 hours ahead of us EST, so we probably won’t hear from anyone until tomorrow morning. Please God keep everyone safe including all the wildlife.
OK, there are a lot of news reports about the quakes. Just Google “dr congo earthquake,” or something and you’ll find a lot of stuff. Bukavu is in Sud-Kivu, the gorilla sector is north of Lake Kivu. These were big quakes so it’s likely there’ll be damage and injuries in a large area. Congo has several volcanoes because it’s along the Great Rift Valley fault where a bunch of tectonic plates intersect. It’s a hot zone. The latest reports on Google news indicate hundreds injured and lots of buildings leveled. Here’s a report from ReliefWeb with a few statistics: http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/SHES-7BGTUJ?OpenDocument
I hope ya’ll are OK.
s.
A lot of thanks to Theresa and Sheryl for the news.
Hope to hear that you are all safe. Please, when you can, let us know.
HOPE YOU ARE ALL SAFE! I’M SURE YOU WILL LET US KNOW WHEN YOU CAN THAT ALL IS WELL. TAKE CARE
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