Gorilla Protection

I’ve just been in touch with Diddy, who has summarised the outcome of their efforts since last November, when the Makala Campaign began.

The Makala Campaign is the sustained effort to prevent the destruction of the gorilla’s habitat for charcoal, and which is considered to be the single most important threat to the future of the Mountain Gorillas in Virunga.

There has been a non-stop watch at Kibati with regular patrols on the eastern flanks of the Nyamulagira and Nyiragongo Volcanoes and Kibumba, in the gorilla sector. Forest destruction for charcoal in these, the most critical sites in the park, have been reduced by two thirds.  In the past tens years, since the war started, we have never achieved such results, so there is quite a sense of encouragement among the rangers.

The patrols have been interesting as well.  On Nyiragongo, the big active volcano to the north of Goma, rangers of the Advance Force, and gorilla rangers from Rumangabo joined forces with the Monuc Indian batallian in January and effectively displaced the FDLR rebels from this part of the park.  For those that are not familiar with the various Rebel factions in Congo, the FDLR are the militias that formed out the Interahamwe, the Rwandan militias that perpetrated the Genocide in Rwanda in 1994.  Not a nice group of individuals.  Unfortunately they are camped out in the forests of eastern Congo, and are a major threat to the ongoing work of the rangers.  The FDLR are also heavily involved in illegal activities including illegal logging for charcoal.  For now, the rangers have the upper hand in this area, but it’s a constant struggle, with occasional armed contacts between militias and government rangers.

The Makala road blocks have been difficult to manage, with trucks trying to force their way through the roadblock at night and at high speed.  But they have been very succussful in reducing charcoal.  These are the registered results so far:

November 07:  5o sacs seized and 3 kilns destroyed

December 07: 102 sacs seized and 180 kilns destroyed

January 08: 413 sacs seized and 37 kilns destroyed

February 08: 296 sacs seized and 53 kilns destroyed

March 08:  385 sacs seized and 7 kilns destroyed

First  two weeks of April 08: 499 sacs seized adn 17 kilns destroyed.

This makes a total of  1745 sacs, or about 80 tons of charcoal seized since the beginning of the campaign.  This charcoal is distributed among the people who have been displaced by the war and are living in camps around Goma.
Unfortunately, many people make money from charcoal and it is a constant battle at a political level to explain the sense of what is happening.  On 20th March, the Provincial minister for the Environment was formally requested to explain the actions of the rangers to the Provincial Assembly (this was documented on the ending charcoal blog).  Last week she defended our position in parliament, and the vote was carried in our favour, which is a big relief, and give us the legal basis to continue the difficult work that lies ahead.

So the legal institutions in Congo, so often criticized in the international media, have played their role very effectively, and maintained the integrity that we had hoped for.  This also applies to the arrest of the suspects considered to be behind the Rugendo Massacre last year.  For my part, I never believed that we would get this far.  But the suspected ringleader has been arrested, and five accomplices were heard at the military tribunal of Goma last week.  That they started at the top on this difficult trial, rather than just finding a couple of small scapegoats, is very much to the credit  of the Congolese judicial system.

In the Mikeno, around bukima, it remains very difficult.  We tried working with a team of villagers to get information on the gorillas.  This worked for a while, but we have since suspended activities because of the risks involved for the villagers going in.  That said, the little information that we have suggests that the mountain gorillas have not suffered, and that there may have been three births, which is pretty miraculous.

All in all, the situation is as difficult a ever, but we are hopeful that we are in a good position to buy time for the gorillas, until this conflict is over.  It means constant support for the rangers so that they don’t lose their morale and continue their incredible efforts.

Emmanuel

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Thank you all for your comments and concern. We are still waiting to find out who actually killed the gorillas last year. It is suspected that the lucrative trade in charcoal (some news papers are calling it Makala), which is an essential domestic fuel, was the motive. We have been writing much about ending the illigal charcoal trade. In the meantime we have some other news. On Tuesday March 18, Didi and Emmanuel and Balemba received information from a tourist operator in Jomba about another family of gorillas that had crossed over to the DR Congo part of Virunga National Park.
Initially, we thought it might be the Kwitonda family that had migrated to Rwanda in 2004. Of course we were very anxious to find more information and soon discovered that is was likely to be a new group! Whereas the Kwitdona group had sixteen individuals, this group has nine. The question remains as to whether this is a part of the Kwitonda group that has split off or an entirely new group that has crossed over from Rwanda.
We then checked with the Rwandese authorities who stated that it appears to be the 13th family from Rwanda who have crossed over to Congolese territory. The CNDP rebels have also confirmed this as they have control of trekking tours to see this particular family as well the Mapuwa family, and the Nyakagezi family (from Uganda).
Since September 2007, ICCN has completely lost control of the Mikeno gorilla sector which is in the hands of the CNDP rebels who had refused access to our Director, Mr Mushenzi in February this year.

We will continue to update you as news comes in. Diddy and Innocent.

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This is Diddy.  Yesterday was an important day in Congo.  It is was International Women’s Day, which have a very special significance for us, especially in North Kivu, where we have yet to experience the peace that we have been hoping for all these years.

Our mothers, wives and daughters organised a March through Rumangabo and into the village.

The March was organised by Madame Virginie Munyaga, who is also the Treasurer for the Southern Sector of the Virunga National Park.  She is very educated and respected in Rumangabo.  Madame Virginie made a very strong statement to the population.  It was a statement of protest to all those who were involved in rape and other forms of brutality against women.  She also condemned those that were destroying their children’s future by destroying the forest for charcoal and killing the gorillas.

Madame Virginie, giving her speech yesterday 

Children were part of the march - we hope that they will not live through what we have had to endure.

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Balemba has made considerable progress in building a small team of local community members to monitor the situation in Mikeno.  At the moment there are two small teams of local agriculturalists forming, one in Bukima, one from Jomba.  We will not be giving you their names, or publishing their photos, because they are operating in rebel territory, and it could put their lives at risk.  We hope that one day, when things have settled down, that we will be able to present them to the public, and that they will get the recognition they deserve.

This is Balemba’s report on progress so far:

We had our first meeting today, Sunday, in the afternoon.  We were joined by Felix Balibua, of the Rumangabo Youth Alliance, and the two team leaders, one from Jomba and the other from Bukima.  Both are internally displaced and live near Rumangabo with relatives.  They climb up to their fields during the day, to try to keep their crops from being destroyed, but cannot stay at night because of insecurity.  They have reported that the rebels have their main base at Jomba, and a secondary base at Bukima.  So they have taken over the ranger’s patrol posts, and are well entrenched and settled for the long haul.  This is bad news, as it will make it all the more difficult for the rangers to recover their patrol posts.

The rebels have forbidden anyone from getting close to Bukima or Jomba, except for a few people herding livestock.  Infact, there is no longer anybody actually living in Bukima, other than an old widow and her two sheep.  She has refused to move.  They have, however seen a group of 6 gorillas in the corn fields between Bukima and Bikenge about a month ago, but since then the fields have been destroyed and they don’t come out of the forest any more.  The group is probably the Rugendo group, whose seven other members were massacred in July last year.  They regularly went out of the park.  It needs verification, but it would be very good news that the six are alive and well.

The rangers’ patrol post at Bikenge has been left in a terrible state by the rebels.  They no longer live there, but they are regularly present in the area.  When they appear, they catch farmers and impose forced labour, including transporting water, and planting marijuana for them, which is now growing all around the patrol post.

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More frustrations today. Norbert Mushenzi, the Director responsible for the Gorilla Sector organised a team, led by himself, and supported by MONUC, to Bunagana and Jomba, on the edge of the Gorilla Sector, close to the Uganda border, to try to gain access to the gorilla sector so that rangers can continue their conservation work. It was a risky trip, and unfortunately, it was unsuccessful. However, it revealed a lot of important information on what is going on in the gorilla held Gorilla Sector.

Normally, the Goma peace agreement should have provided free access to the area to the wildlife authorities. Unfortunately this is not the case because the Gorilla Sector is under the control of a man called Kanamaragi, who is a former ranger who mutineed and joined the ranks of Nkunda’s troops. He has appointed himself as the Director of National Parks for rebel held territories. He is said to fund his activities by selling gorilla permits to unsuspecting tourists coming from Rwanda. It has been reported that a conservation group has also been sending him funds. Kanamaragi has forbiden any legitimate rangers from coming back to the Gorilla Sector.

A photo taken before the expedition failed to convince the rebels to let them through and was turned back. Norbert Mushenzi is third on the right. The fellow on his left is Nkunda’s younger brother, on his right, in Rwandan military uniform, is a rebel officer.

Efforts continue to restore effective conservation in the Gorilla Sector.

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We planed to go to Bukima today but at the last moment, Monuc asked to delay a joint mission. This is important because rebels still keep there positions and we heard that there are some “releve” (change) of troops from Rwanda. We have an appointment tomorrow with Monuc at the catholic parish of Rugari, at 8h00 we will be climbing to Bukima. The aim is to do an assessment on the ground and to ensure that rebels will not attack us and our rangers as we do our work.

We have had some sporadic news from the front-runners. We heard that there are 2 babies born in Mapuwa and Kabirizi family. It sounds too good to be true, but we remain cautious as the news is not certain, and we have been disappointed so many times in the past. We cannot provide more information about mothers and those babies. We need to do an assessment to certify what female get the baby as well as to know the actual status of the families. We can certify that 3 big families have been found: Humba and Kabirizi and Mapuwa but we cannot know if its composition remains the same. We are still looking for 3 other small families Rugendo, and Muniaga (5 individuals each) and Lulengo (4 individuals).

In Gatovu sector, another group of 10 individuals has been found under the leadership of a non-habituated silverback. This may result from a dislocation of some families or from the threats of bombing few days ago, some individuals may get lost. We need to verify this information and to establish the real origin of this new family. We hope that the appointment of tomorrow will be helpful to launch early Thursday (February 13^th) a general assessment after a long period without a monitoring.

Tomorrow I will update you on our struggles to stop the charcoal trade. For now, let me tell you that we are all extremely excited and impatient to get back to work.

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It has been a very long wait, but there are now signs that the fighting may have diminshed enough for us to relaunch the conservation work in the Gorilla Sector. We’re not quite there yet, as the positions are still occupied by rebel soldiers, but this would be a very big moment for us, after all the waiting and frustration. As soon as we get back to Bukima, we will immediately launch a survey to know what has happened to our gorillas. It has been an enormous worry over the past six months.

With Rob Muir, of the Frankfurt Zoological Society, we have started to get equipment and materials back to Rumangabo, the park headquarters for the southern sector. Until now, Rumangabo was in the thick of the fighting and was very nearly seized by the rebels. Hopefully this is the beginning of a return to normality.

Innocent.

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This week the winds have started again which means that the rains have stopped. When there is no rain the families tend to move around a lot more, and yesterday the guards here reported that the Munyaga Family covered a distance of over 3 kms in just one day, normally they move about 2 kms maximum. Today the Kabirizi Family have also been moving around a lot, but this is not because of the lack of rain but because there have been interactions between Kabirizi and the lone silverback Karateka, who is obviously keen to start a group by gaining females.

There are three habituated families near the Bukima Patrol Post; Kabirizi, Munyaga and the Humba Family, as well as two habituated, solitary silverbacks; Karateka and Bukima. Although the Rugendo Family were here, they have now moved back into the area of the Bikenge Patrol Post.

Now that we have finished visiting each family, and checked on the status and identity of each habituated individual, it is time for us to write our reports.

Each day, for each group, we take the GPS coordinates of where the family stayed the night and also where they are during the day. These coordinates are then put into the computer and are tracked using Arc View and GIS software.

We also record the type of vegetation that dominates the area that they are in, the type of terrain; whether they are in the hills, mountains or on a plain. We also record the ancient names of the area that they are in, for example, Ndindanyare which in Kinyabwisha means, ‘Wait for me, I’m taking a piss’.

Our report also involves documenting the face of each individual from each group, and also noting the nose print.

Above you can see the photos and nose prints of the Humba and Mapuwa Family back in January. Every three months we have to do this for each individual as the nose print changes with time.

We will be letting you know more about our report as the days continue.

Other news, the infant Mutazimiza is still poorly and so Dr Jacques and Dr Eddy from MGVP will be coming to visit tomorrow.

Diddy and Innocent

Technorati : Bukima, Congo, DRC, ICCN, Mountain Gorillas, WildlifeDirect

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The campaign for protecting the gorillas is now fully underway. An emergency unit has been put together under the leadership of ICCN Director Norbert Mushenzi, and includes WildlifeDirect, the Zoological Society of London and the Frankfurt Zoological Society, the International Gorilla Conservation Programme and Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International. All are contributing financially to the operation and working together to protect the gorillas.

Rations and supplies for the security operations around Mikeno

Boots for the rangers that have just been flown in from Nairobi, as part of a batch of supplies to fully equip 150 rangers.

The Advance Force arrived some time ago and were deployed in the Gorilla sector as a permanent watch. We are now busy providing logistical support together with rations and equipment to make sure that they can continue with their job.

Everything has been extremely busy, but we are beginning to get results. For all the difficulties of the past few weeks, morale is high, and all the rangers on the ground are working long hours, seven days a week. The gorilla families, especially the remaining gorillas in the Rugendo group are being watched over, and I’ll give you an update on that shortly.

Please continue to contact the WildlifeDirect team at gorillacampaign@wildlifedirect.org to receive an awareness raising email to send to your friends, or if you should have any other ideas for fundraising, do not hesitate to get in touch with them.

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There have been many meetings these past few days and although I am as yet unable to discuss the contents here, I would like to thank all the partners who have been quick to help ICCN.

Many thanks to DFGI, FZS, IGCP, WildlifeDirect and ZSL.

Also thank you to everyone who has donated through this blog, the support has been tremendous.

Technorati : ACF, CI, FZS, ICCN, IGCP, WildlifeDirect, ZSL

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