Gorilla Protection

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

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This is Diddy & Innocent. During the last 4 weeks we have been intensifying the anti-charcoal patrols in the southern sector of Virunga National Park. You will recall that we spoke about the increase in charcoal burning as a result of the insecurity in the area caused by the war between the rebels and the army. We estimated in mid-December that there had been a 10-fold increase in the illegal charcoal trade since September.

So we have been trying to stop the illegal making of charcoal in the park, on 2 fronts. We have been doing sporadic patrols into the park, but security has been very precarious because of the presence of rebel groups. So we have focused more on stopping the trucks actually transporting the illegal charcoal to Goma for sale.

This is an example of one of such trucks. Absolutely packed with illegal charcoal.

Sometimes the trucks are SO overloaded they simply tip over.

We have to stop all trucks on the road because often there may be potatoes or cabbages in sacks that are visible, and in the middle there is charcoal. This was the case with this truck.

So we have been organizing ourselves - about 36 of us in total - at the Kibati patrol post which is about 15km north of Goma on the main road to Rumangabo and Rutshuru. Some of us are also at Kibumba. So we are split into 3 teams of 12.

We have legal permission to stop the trucks full of illegal charcoal from the National Prosecutor of DR Congo. This is the legal document that states that we are entitled to protect Virunga National Park, according to Law 069-41 of 22 August 1969.

This is the same law under which we are working to bring to justice those responsible for the July massacre, and the death of the baby gorilla in September. There is a blog post about this here.

Since about the 20th December we have confiscated over 240 sacks of illegal charcoal, which is equivalent to about 20 tons. These have been brought to Goma and will ultimately be distributed to orphanages, schools and hospitals.

The charcoal, once confiscated, is brought to Goma.

We have to store it while the judicial process is underway.

And then we will be able to distribute it.

All these patrols that we are talking about have been led by Augustin Kambale. He has been promoted to Head of Anti-Poaching. This is a significant promotion from head of the Bukima patrol post as he now heads up over 80 to 100 Rangers. He has started this job during a very very challenging time.

Jean Bosco, head of Community Conservation, & Augustin, earlier this week in Goma.

Late on Monday afternoon Rangers stopped a truck, that had illegal charcoal in it, at Kibati.

The truck driver knew that we had set up this barrier at Kibati to stop the illegal charcoal.

The driver tried to drive very quickly through the barrier. Because the roads are not even, he veered too much to one side and the entire truck ended up tipping over.

Heated arguments followed between the local people, the Rangers, and the military who were also present. The situation got totally out of control amid the shouting, and the local population beat up 3 of our Rangers. There was absolutely nothing we could do among all the people. At one point there were at least 15 people kicking the Ranger Asumani. Once the people had stopped beating up the Rangers, the military stole their boots & berets. A local man also stole one of the Ranger’s guns. Remember with the long war here everyone knows how to use a gun. There were so many people around, all shouting at once, it was absolute chaos.

Once we were able to gain hold of the situation we took the 3 Rangers to hospital in Goma where they spent 2 nights. They came out this morning.

Afterwards the local population also pushed our car off the road.

This morning Maniroho, Ndayumujina & Asumani went back to the Kibati patrol post, and will then go on to Rumangabo to rest for a few days and continue receiving treatment. Asumani’s leg, as you can see, is in plaster as a result of the beating.

Now Director Mushenzi is following the judicial process with the lawyer Maitre Mathieu to deal with the confiscated illegal charcoal to date and the debacle of Monday afternoon. We will keep you posted.

Diddy & Innocent

Technorati : charcoal, congo, drc, iccn, ranger, wildlifedirect

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This is Samantha.

I have just met with Innocent and Diddy and fighting has broken out again between the rebels and the army at Rutshuru, north of Rumangabo. Innocent’s mother is literally hiding under the bed, and has been for several hours. She is eating raw bananas because that is all there is. And Diddy is unable to get hold of Justine, his wife.

This information is quite literally hot off the press. It should calm down, fingers crossed, by the end of the day. I will let you know when I hear any news.

On a similar note, on Saturday I went to Rumangabo with Innocent, Diddy and other Rangers. Diddy was actually in Kiwanja, north of Rumangabo, so came down on the motorbike (that takes about an hour) while Innocent went up from Goma at the same time as me. Goma to Rumangabo takes about 1h30. Diddy has been in Goma now since Saturday pm, which is why Justine is up at Kiwanja, next to Rutshuru where the fighting is going on.

As you know Rumangabo is the headquarters for the southern sector of Virunga. For a map of this go here.

So the 70 Rangers from the Gorilla Sector are camped out there for the most part, unless they have somewhere else to go. Some of them are with their families, which can mean a lot of children.

I saw Jean Marie Serundori, who is the number 2 of the Bukima patrol post after Augustin Kambale. You will remember Jean Marie from previous posts.

His wife had just given birth to their eighth child - who has yet to be named. She was born 4 days before I got there, so last Wednesday.

Jean Marie and his wife and the newest addition to the family.

She will be named soon!

Jean-Marie was in good spirits despite being away from his patrol post - undoubtedly the birth of his daughter had something to do with this.

This is where Jean Marie is living - it is temporary accommodation for the displaced Rangers. It is extremely challenging at this time for everyone. Amid the insecurity and the uncertainty of how long the conflict will go on, it is very difficult to plan and accommodate. Today’s events show this very clearly.

I actually went up with Daniel Pepper, a freelance US journalist for a bunch of publications who had come to cover the Mountain Gorilla crisis that has been evolving since September 3rd. As you know that is part of my job - to get this issue in the international media. Daniel will be writing the story for US News and a couple of other publications. I will let you all know when it comes out.

Innocent and Diddy, with Daniel at the gorilla cemetery, explaining about the July massacre.

I also met Innocent’s father, Silvestre, who is a Ranger too as you know and head of the Bikenge patrol post. That was the first time for me so it was fun to see them both together.

Innocent and others had also been on patrol the day before and detained some people who were making charcoal in the park. Innocent has lots of photos on that and wants to post over the next few days. About 30 people in total were detained.

The atmosphere at Rumangabo is one of frustration. The Rangers are trying to do what they can - as shown by the one-day patrol on Friday to stop charcoal burning. But there is really not a lot they can do other than wait it out. It is beyond the Rangers and beyond conservation organizations. We are all reliant on the political will of the government and the armed forces, which today does not seem to be working too well.

I can honestly say that the Rangers appreciate all the support they can get - moral and financial. They want to speak to journalists when I take them up to Rumangabo, because they want to have a voice in all of this mess. And the Rangers, like us and other organizations, are poised to start working as soon as we can get a foot back in the Gorilla Sector.

Let us hope this recent spate of fighting stops soon, and that progress can be made toward finding a solution.

Samantha

Technorati : congo, drc, iccn, wildlifedirect

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We received a donation of 10 sets of binoculars and 2 telescopes, all very high quality, from Matto Barfuss and his wife Kirstine. They are from Germany and have visited us 4 times before to show us support.

The equipment

We greeted Matto at Rumangabo

We are very thankful for this donation. The equipment will be used for the protection of Mountain Gorillas and other animals. It will mean that we can observe gorillas for example from a distance, and identify them by their noseprint without getting up close.

All the Rangers looked at the equipment

I chatted with Matto

We will keep the equipment at the station in Rumangabo until we can get back out into the field.

I am looking forward to using the equipment

Innocent

Technorati : binocular, congo, drc, iccn, telescope, wildlifedirect

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Today a handful of rangers have made their way back to the Bukima Patrol Post, and a reconnaissance patrol is being carried out to check on the status of the nearby gorilla families. This will not be easy as gorilla families may have moved several kilometres due to the fighting.

The Congolese military are now at Bikenge and the rebels are at Jomba. This cannot be seen as steps towards a victory however as, due to its location, this is a strategic position for the insurgents. Due to the nature of the fighting and our proximity I personally am not in a position to give more details on this blog. Thank you to everyone for your support so far and for your interest to follow the situation through other news sites.

More news to follow.

Diddy

Technorati : Congo, DRC, ICCN, Kivu, Rangers

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It’s been an extremely difficult week. We’ve had the worst disaster in 30 years, but there are still many gorillas left in Mikeno that need to be protected. The plan is to massively intensify protection. We are going to intensify surveillance, both within the park and along the boundary. Five patrols will each be walking the length of the boundary every day, making it impossible for anyone to enter the area unseen. In addition, small teams of rangers will be staying with each family of gorillas, maintaining a constant watch.

This approach is extremely intensive, and unfortunately depletes other parts of the park of their rangers, but given the crisis, we will have to maintain it for at least three months. The approach is also extremely expensive (maintaing 33 rangers on operations will cost close to $5000/month), and your donations have played a huge role in making it possible (we can fund this operation for about 3 months). We’re extremely grateful for that help.

Like I said, this approach means that we have to take rangers away from other parts of the park and makes these areas vulnerable to poachers. So the strategy has to be short-term. The long-term solution is to create a highly trained, highly disciplined and well equipped “Gorilla Protection Unit” of 50 rangers that will be based in the gorilla sector. We will start right away and fund-raise for this unit in the hope of having it in place by the end of October.

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I often refer to charcoal burning as one of the main illegal activities in Virunga National Park and one of the challenges we face. This may not be clear to all of you. I know everyone is familiar with illegal logging, but charcoal burning is different. In short, people cut down trees to burn them, in situ, to make charcoal. This charcoal is then sold in Goma or elsewhere.

We often come across charcoal burning. And these pictures show you how it works.

First the charcoal burners chop down a tree. Often, with a tree of this size, they do not use the whole trunk but the large side branches. But they chop the whole tree down anyway.

Then they stack up the branches into a dome shape. Here you can see my men dismantling one of these domes.

Then the charcoal burners put a layer of mud over the wood, to isolate the wood from the atmosphere. This makes the wood burn stronger and form charcoal. They leave it for a day or two to burn.

Here you can see what I mean. This was a charcoal burning scene we came across and you can see my Rangers destroying the fire by removing the layer of mud.

Once the wood has become charcoal the people put it into sacks.

So as you can see it causes real destruction, and is one of the principal challenges for me and my Rangers.

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On Saturday the Rangers at Bukima - Jean-Marie, Frederic, Gerome and others - went to track the Humba family. The family were about 2 hours from the patrol post, up at about 2,000 meters (that is about 6,000 feet). The favorite food of Mountain Gorillas is bamboo, and this is found at high altitude. A Silverback eats about 30 kilos a day - but this food has a very high water content.

Humba is always a very calm family. I have mentioned before that Humba means Placid or Calm. Humba is a large Silverback as you can see. He is the brother of Rugendo, but is much bigger. He was enjoying the sunshine and his family and seemed not to even notice the presence of the Rangers, let alone the little one sitting on top of him!

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As I said in my previous post, the Landrover for which Chris A donated $12,000 is very useful. I can transport Rangers, go to other park stations and patrol posts, and very much improve our effectiveness in the park thanks to this car. It is helping to protect Virunga National Park, the gorillas and all other wildlife.

Chris A donated $12,000. The car cost more than this and we used WildlifeDirect open donations for this ie donations that were not for any specific thing.

This first receipt from Oxfam is for the shell of the vehicle that we initially bought.

Here are the other receipts in chronological order:

And this was for painting the ICCN logo on the side of the vehicle.

The total came to $19,600. Thank you Chris, and thank you everyone else for your donations. Paulin

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This is an update on the Kabirizi family from Augustin at Bukima:

Today I visited the Kabirizi family. The Gorillas are 2 hours from the Bukima patrol post at the moment. The family is totally traumatized. This is understandable after the terrible events of Friday. It also means that we cannot get close to the family. We do not want to make them more terrified and scared. But we do need to know if any of them are missing.

So we still do not know. I will not visit the family tomorrow. But I will go again on Friday and see if we can make any progress. We are worried that a Gorilla may be injured, or worse that other Gorillas were killed and we don’t know about it. Although no more bodies have been found.

You may know that Gorillas are identified by their nose print. The photo below shows the notebook that I always carry with me that has the nose prints of all the families that I protect from my patrol post.

Here is a map, which has been used before on this blog, but for those of you who do not know where Bukima is. Rubiga was killed south west of here.

And here is a photo I took about 3 weeks ago of the Kabirizi family. Those were happier days for them.

Augustin

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