Category: Western Lowland Gorilla, Year of the Gorilla | Date: Aug 10 2009 | By: paula

GABONESE ORPHAN GORILLAS SET FREE ON AN ISLAND

Text by Sarah Monaghan, images by SCD B.V.

Six young gorillas rescued from the illegal bush meat trade, have begun new independent lives on a lagoon island just outside Loango National Park in Gabon.

The full story can be read here  

Tags: bush meat trade, Congo, Gabon, gorilla, Loango National Park, lowland gorilla, mountain gorilla, orphaned gorilla, veterinarian

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: May 05 2009 | By: paula

A new and shocking report by the Endangered Species International (ESI) reveals that over 300 gorillas are killed and sold for meat annually at Pointe Noire in the Republic of the Congo.  Using undercover methods at key markets in the city of Pointe Noire in 2008 and early 2009, ESI found that 95 percent of the illegal bushmeat sold originates from the Kouilou region about 100-150 km northwest to Pointe Noire where primary and unprotected rainforest still remains. The Kouilou region is one the last reservoirs of biodiversity and endangered animals in the area.

 

Gorilla meat is sold in the form of smoked meat already cut in pieces. A piece of hand size smoked gorilla is usually sold for 2,500 CFA (6 USD).

Other wildlife species sold in the local markets include mandrill, African rock python, spotted hyaena, great blue turaco, Nile monitor, and black-and-white-casqued hornbill.

Help us to stop the illegal trade in gorillas, make a donation today to support the year of the gorilla.

Tags: Congo, Endangered Species International, gorilla, illegal trade, pointe Noire, trade

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Apr 29 2009 | By: paula

Earlier this year we (WildlifeDirect) were approached by someone commissioned by a rich citizen of a middle eastern country, who wanted to know how to go about purchasing a baby gorilla. We were very disturbed at the request, and explained as politely as possible, the legal and ethical implications and consequences. Well, it’s obvious that there is a market for baby gorillas as has just been reported by the ICCN.

On Sunday a suspected gorilla trafficker was caught and arrested at Goma International Airport.  He arrived from Walikale with a baby eastern lowland gorilla hidden under clothes at the bottom of a bag.  This baby came from Congo which is the only place where this species is found. The baby was stressed and was “suffering from over-heating and dehydration after spending over 6 hours in transit”.

This video shows how the operation was conducted by the Virunga National Park. WildlifeDirects former CEO Emmanuel de Merode led the 3 month opearation. Congratulations to everyone at the ICCN - lets hope that justice will be served and the baby gorilla returns to it’s natural habitat.

Read the ICCN press release here

Tags: Congo, DRC, gorilla, ICCN, lowland gorilla, mountain gorilla, wildlife trade, wildlife trafficking

7 responses so far

Category: Mountain Gorillas | Date: Mar 13 2009 | By: paula

The first ever animated film about mountain gorillas is about to be released it has just been announced  on the All Africa news website.

“Written in Luganda and titled Galiwango: Obulamu Bwe Kisodde, (The life of a Gorilla), the film aims to sensitise the public about the plight of mountain gorillas in Rwanda, the DRC and Uganda.

The film creater, US-based artiste Solomon Jagwe, relies on his skills and African roots to create a sombre but humour-filled animated film. His goal is to draw attention to the existence of this unique natural resource.

Galiwango is a tribute to Jagwe’s grandmother whom he says taught him how to tell stories as a young boy. “I remember sitting by her feet and listening intently as she recounted stories of Waguluddene, Wakayima and Wango.” he says.

Jagwe tells the story of the struggles and triumphs of the gorillas from a captured gorilla’s point of view. He weaves into the tale a human element of interaction with technology, war and humour.

Galiwango’s story begins in the thick tropical forests of the Virunga Mountains. Jagwe traces the gorilla’s journey after it is taken from Uganda and illegally sold to a research facility in an undisclosed Western country.

Years later, Galiwango’s journey comes full circle to Uganda.

A plane carrying equipment and a crate housing Galiwango, is shot down over the Virunga Mountains.

At the crash site Galiwango meets two other gorillas, Muwanguzi, an aging Silver Back and Lutalo, who carries a rifle. The rest of the story explores the dangers of living in a forest that is full of conflict and greed.

Close encounters with poachers and rebels drive the need by Galiwango and his friends to stay alert.

Jaggwe hopes that Ugandans can appreciate the rare gift they have in the mountain gorillas and fight against the possibility of their extinction”.

We can’t wait to see it!

Tags: , animated movie, CNDP, Congo, DR Congo, gorillas, ICCN, mountain gorilla, Virunga

One response so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Mar 12 2009 | By: paula

We at WildlifeDirect have raised concern about China’s role in the accelerating elephant killings across Africa hwic his driven by China’s insatiable demand for ivory. The Government of China claim that they have excellent controls and education programs at home, and deny that China is having the impact that so many of us fear, on elephants, trees, apes and other species in Africa.

Jane Goodall has vindicated us. This news article was just published on AFP on 10th March 2009.

Primatologist Goodall: China plundering Africa resources

WASHINGTON (AFP) — China’s thirst for natural resources including wood and minerals is leading to massive deforestation in Africa and the destruction of crucial wildlife habitat, world-renowned primatologist Jane Goodall has said.

The British scientist who revolutionized research with her studies of chimpanzees beginning in 1960 warned that Beijing is pressing governments in central Africa’s Congo basin to sign over forest concessions in return for infrastructure and healthcare aid.

She said the process is helping decimate some of the largest populations of wild chimpanzees and gorillas in the world.

“These areas containing unlogged forests are very desirable to, particularly today, China, with China’s desperate effort for economic growth,” she told a Capitol Hill briefing attended by House of Representatives science and technology committee chairman Bart Gordon.

“Basically, they have almost exhausted their own supplies (of wood and minerals) so they go to Africa and offer large amounts of money or offer to build roads or make dams, in return for forest concessions or rights to minerals and oil,” Goodall, 74, said.

“I’m actually hoping (China’s growth rate) will be slowed a little bit by this economic crisis” in order to stem the deforestation, she said.

Goodall said the Chinese “have many enterprises in Congo-Brazzaville, and they’re certainly in DRC,” the Democratic Republic of Congo, two countries where deforestation and human encroachment have decimated wild primate populations despite efforts by the Jane Goodall Institute and other groups to reverse the trend.

“Their habitat is disappearing,” said Goodall, considered one of the 20th century’s leading scientists for her work with chimpanzees in what is now Gombe National Park in Tanzania.

She said it was crucial to work more closely with national and local governments in order to expand community-based conservation projects as a way to “offset offers from China.”

She also blamed the rampant bushmeat trade for helping devastate primate populations.

The trade is facilitated by foreign logging concerns building roads into once-inaccessible forested areas, and in some cases allowing hunters to ride in and out of the region on logging trucks.

Goodall’s institute is focused in part on expanding chimpanzee habitat in Gombe and working with local villages to rehabilitate denuded land and help create green corridors between Gombe and other areas with chimpanzees within the vast Congo basin.

The softspoken Goodall began her briefing in dramatic fashion, by imitating the wild call of a chimpanzee.

It could be interpreted as a cry for help — both for the primates and for the organizations working to protect them — as Goodall acknowledged that the conservation efforts could suffer a crippling blow over the next year and beyond due to the global financial crisis.

She told AFP that the downturn has made it more difficult to raise money for her work and for local governments to conduct or enforce conservation initiatives.

Tags: China, Congo, DR Congo, Elephants, great apes, illegal trade, ivory, Jane Goodall, wildlifedirect

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Mar 03 2009 | By: paula

Something very exciting is happening in the Virunga region. An ‘Inter-State agency’ is being created to coordinate conservation in the Virunga volcanoes called The ‘Greater Virunga Transboundary Collaboration (GVTC)‘. The agency formalizes the ongoing collaboration between the three countries that share the Virungas, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda .

The GVTC’s will work to conserve, manage environmental resources and promote tourism in protected areas of the three countries especially the Virunga Park, which is home to hundreds of the only surviving mountain gorillas in the world. Administration of this agency will be vested in the Inter-Ministerial board, the Trans-boundary Core Secretariat and its affairs directly managed under an Executive Secretariat based in Rwanda.

With this new development, environmental management, law enforcement, gorilla census and tourism will be coordinated across the transboundary region.

We offer our heart felt congratulations to the ministers of the three countries and wish well in getting this initiative off the ground.

Tags: Congo, DR Congo, Greater Virunga Transboundary Collaboration, ICCN, Mountain Gorillas, ORTPN, Rwanda, Uganda, UWA, Virunga

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Mar 01 2009 | By: paula

I just found an article in the Miami Herald titled “Protecting nature during war can aid recovery” by Russel Mittermeier and Thor Hanson which has enormous relevance to what is happening in gorilla range states throughout Africa, not least the DR Congo. It is such an important article that I’ve reproduced it in full here

Protecting nature during war can aid recovery

An urgent call to protect nature in the midst of violence and loss of human life may seem naive or misguided. But if you consider where most major armed conflicts take place, wartime conservation is one of the best hopes for wartime recovery.Our recently published paper, ”Warfare in Biodivesity Hotspots,” reveals that 80 percent of the world’s major armed conflicts have occurred in some of the most biologically diverse and threatened places on Earth. Conservation activities must remain strong during such conflicts to ensure that local people will have the natural resources they need to survive and reestablish healthy communities in the post-war period.

The world’s 34 biodiversity hotspots have within their borders more than three-quarters of the world’s most endangered species. More than half of all plant species and at least 42 percent of all vertebrates occur within the hotspots and nowhere else. Our study shows that these areas are hotspots in other ways as well. A total of 23 experienced a significant violent conflict in which more than 1,000 people died between 1950 and 2000, and many suffered repeated episodes of violence.

We must not abandon these places. Loss of healthy functioning ecosystems makes people more vulnerable to many other threats, including the spread of disease, famine and severe weather events such as massive flooding. A majority of the world’s poorest people who rely on natural resources for their daily survival live in the biodiversity hotspots, which are largely concentrated in developing tropical nations. Forests and other healthy ecosystems help cleanse freshwater supplies and provide sources of food, medicines and materials for building homes. Nature is often intertwined with centuries-old traditional lifestyles and unique indigenous cultures.

Violent conflicts have various far-reaching impacts on ecosystems. In some cases, the scale and technology has led to what has been termed ”ecocide.” Such was the case during the Vietnam War, when poisonous Agent Orange was dumped from low-flying planes, defoliating 14 percent of the country’s forest cover and more than 50 percent of its coastal mangroves — with disastrous consequences since mangroves provide some of the richest fish habitat, and they shield coastal communities from severe impacts of hurricanes and tsunamis.

Beyond the battlegrounds, indirect effects of conflict have more far-reaching impacts. In Sierra Leone, Cambodia and Congo, war money came from extensive timber harvesting, and the cultivation of illicit drugs has provided financing for violent conflicts in Afghanistan, Southeast Asia and Latin America.

War has devastating impacts on wildlife and other natural resources. Refugees are in no position to consider the environmental consequences of their actions. They hunt, gather firewood or build encampments to survive. The local proliferation of small arms leads to increased hunting for wild animals, or bush meat. And all too frequently, poaching during these lawless times leads to annihilation of wildlife, such as the loss of 95 percent of the hippopotamus in Congo’s Virunga National Park in 2006, and the deliberate slaughter of mountain gorillas in that same park in 2007.

Ecosystem protection must be integrated into military, reconstruction and humanitarian programs in the world’s conflict zones. Conservationists must work alongside these sectors in the wartime planning stage as well as during and after conflicts.

Supporting national institutions and local staff throughout the duration of a conflict is key. Local conservationists often remain to work in conflict areas because these places are their homes. Maintaining salaries and providing safe houses and funds to rebuild homes is an ethical imperative as well as a good conservation strategy. Yet very often the response of conservation organizations and other donor agencies is to pull out as soon as conflicts begin, which only exacerbates the problem over the long term.

The pattern of violence appears to be continuing into the 21st century. And while one must be cautious in speculating cause and effect, the fact that so many conflicts have occurred in areas of high biodiversity loss and natural resource degradation warrants much further attention.

Russell A. Mittermeier is president of the Arlington, Va.,-based Conservation International; Thor Hanson is an independent conservation biologist and author based in Washington state.

Tags: Conflict, Congo, conservation, DR Congo, Gorilla conservation, war, wildlifedirect.org

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jan 21 2009 | By: paula

It finally seems like things might be looking up in Congo. 2000 Rwandan troopes are working the the DRC military to flush out the perpetrators of the Rwandan Genocide.

Following a review of 156 logging concessions granted in recent years, 91 (60%) will be canceled and 13 million hectares in the DR Congo will not be logged. The remaining 65 logging operations will go ahead and clear nearly 10 million hectares. While the cancellation of contracts is a step in the right direction, it falls short of expectations. All of the canceled contracts were issued in questionable circumstances, just part of the rampant corruption in that country. The Congo Basin is the second largest tropical forest in the world after the Amazon and is home to thousands of great apes amongst other species. But it is being destroyed at a rate of over 800,000 hectares a year (an area roughly the size of Massachusetts) due to logging, mining and agricultural land clearance.

We will be bringing news from the ground shortly.

Tags: , Congo, DR Congo, gorillas

3 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jan 12 2009 | By: paula

Several news articles illustrate the situation on the ground in the Virungas where 6 people were killed on Friday

The Mail and Guardian here http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-01-11-wildlife-warriors-share-neutral-drc-park

And this article on CNN about the killing of a ranger http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/01/11/congo.gorilla.ranger.killed/ at Mt Tshiaberimu is also carried by AP here http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h_voPhRFmaOSJX111j2J1L-H9slwD95KAK080

This article is taken from Press TV http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=81420&sectionid=351020506

Six killed in fresh Congo fighting
Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:18:25 GMT
Children near a camp overlooking Lake Kivu, in Kibati, 5km north of the provincial capital Goma.
Clashes between DR Congo rebels and pro-government militia in the east left six people dead as UN envoy holds talks with embattled rebel chief Laurent Nkunda.

United Nations peacekeeping spokesman Lt. Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich said his troops found the bodies of six Mai Mai militiamen after an hour of fighting Friday morning between the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) and Mai Mai militia in the village of Mabenga, about 90 kilometers north of the regional capital, Goma.

Mabenga is the site where Virunga National Park was to be constructed but is at present used as a military base by the CNDP rebel fighters. The site also marks the border between rebel-held territory and a zone designated neutral where several pro-government forces are located.

CNDP spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Seraphin Mirindi said they suffered no casualties when they were attacked by members of the Congolese Resistance Patriots, a part of the pro-government Mai Mai.

Meanwhile, the UN special envoy for Congo, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, held talks with Laurent Nkunda, who was the undisputed rebel leader until recently when he was challenged by one of his senior aides, Bosco Ntaganda who now heads a group of rebels.

After the talks in Jomba, 60 kilometers north of Goma, Nkunda told AFP that discussions with Obasanjo were focused on issues “that could move forward the negotiations in Nairobi”. He said that the UN envoy is going to talk with the presidents of the Congolese national assembly and senate by telephone and that Obasanjo has promised to help “until peace returns to the Congo”.

Direct talks between the rebels and the Kinshasa government have been underway since Wednesday in the Kenyan capital.

Years of sporadic violence in eastern Congo, which intensified in August, has displaced more than 250,000 people and has sparked a humanitarian crisis. Some 17,000 UN peacekeepers have not been able to quell the chaos.

Tags: conflict in Congo, Congo, DR Congo, Mountain Gorillas, Virunga National Park

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Dec 11 2008 | By: paula

We’ve been closely monitoring the talks in Nairobi over the last three days. News agencies are stating that the talks have stalled, our contacts have told us that the problem is indecision by CNDP - it seems that the representatives are unable to make decisions on behalf of Laurent Nkunda. What a waste of time!

Meanwhile the United Nations have published  a report  implicating that both Rwanda and Congo have been supporting rebels.  Rwandan government and army has been found helping the CNDP - the report alleges directly involvement in the hostilities, recruiting of child soldiers, supplying artillery and even holding bank accounts for rebels. The report even claims that UN monitored phone calls between Kagame and Nkunda.

Rwanda  of course denies any involvement in the CNDP. In an interview on BBC today, Rwanda’s ambassador to the UN, Claver Gatete, denies any role of Rwanda but that as a democratic nation anyone can have a bank account in Rwanda, and he also claims that the arms that the CNDP have are not supplied form Rwanda, but are ‘found on the ground’ when they take villages and towns.

The report also claims to have evidence of the Congolese army of supporting the Rwandan Hutu militia in eastern Congo which includes some Hutus accused of carrying out the Rwandan 1994 genocide. It names foreign companies that have benefited from the FDLR through access to mines, and recommends that sanctions be imposed against them and individuals named in the report.

While there is a lot of talk going on but many are questioning the political will by nations to intervene and halt the cycle of violence.

Tags: Congo, crisis in Congo, ICCN, Rwanda, Virunga National Park, wildlifedirect

2 responses so far