Gorilla

Having met the Kabirizi family twice I feel as if they are my family so you can imagine my joy when I saw that Kabirizi has another child. that means that Miza, the orphaned baby gorilla we wrote about in “Looking for Miza” about has another sibling!

Look at this beauty!

Thank you Innocent for bringing us this wonderful news. I know that things are still very difficult in eastern DR Congo but the gorillas look quite peaceful thanks to our former CEO Emmanuel de Merode who is now the Virunga National Park warden and his team of dedicated rangers on the ground.

Four senior wildlife officers who had been arrested for the July 2007 killings of 5 mountain gorillas have been found guilty of a lesser charge o f destruction of flora and fauna.

There was insufficient evidence to link them to the killings of the gorillas and they were each fined US $ 5,000 and sentenced for 6 months imprisonment for the illegal charcoal trade which is said to have earned each of them up to $15,000 per month. The officers have been suspended from the ICCN.

The alleged mastermind of the gorilla killings Honore Mashagiro, is on trial. He is the former Director of the Virunga National Park and is accused of involvement in the illegal charcoal mafia and killings of the gorillas in July 2007.

This is the first time that the ICCN has prosecuted it’s own officers and represents a significant achievement towards zero tolerance of illegal activities by the wildlife officers.

Emmanuel de Merode, former CEO of WildlifeDirect, is the current Director of the Virunga Park. All of us at WildlifeDirect applaud Emmanuel and his team for this achievement, and look forward to continued successes in protecting the mountain gorillas.

We are all celebrating at WidlifeDirect with the good news  that the mountain gorillas in Virunga National Park have not been affected by the conflict there. In fact the population has increased by 10 new babies between August 2007 and January 2009. Five of them probaby fathered by this guy,

Kabirizi, the head of the Kabirizi family which now numers 33 individuals.

Here is the official press release from Virunga National Park.

26 January 2009

CONGO MOUNTAIN GORILLA POPULATION UP BY 12.5% IN LAST 16 MONTHS

DR Congo’s habituated Mountain Gorilla population in Virunga National Park increased by 12.5 percent from 72 to 81 gorillas between August 2007 and January 2009, according to the results of an 8-week census conducted by the Congolese Wildlife Authority (ICCN) released today. Based on a previous 2003 census, Park Rangers also estimate 120 non-habituated Mountain Gorillas in the 250 sq km Mikeno Sector of the park, the only area in DR Congo that is home to Mountain Gorillas, bringing the country’s Mountain Gorilla population total to circa 211. The worldwide population of Mountain Gorillas is believed to be 720, all of them living in the conflict-affected area between DR Congo, Uganda and Rwanda.

“The status of Virunga’s Mountain Gorillas is a triumph for conservation, and is the product of 15 years’ effort and sacrifice on the part of Congo’s Rangers, of the consistent support from international organisations and individuals, and of the sustained determination of 3 African nations to protect this globally important species,” said Virunga National Park Director Emmanuel de Merode.

Over 50 Park Rangers conducted over 128 patrols during the census, and identified 6 gorilla families in Mikeno and 3 solitary
Silverbacks. The largest family is the Kabirizi Family, with 33 individuals including 5 newborns. The Rugendo family – victim of the July 2007 massacre – now has 9 members, up from 5, including 2 Silverbacks vying for control of the group.

“Mountain Gorilla family structures change with each birth, death, interaction and migration. The Kabirizi family, our largest gorilla group with 33 individuals, has 5 newborns which is wonderful news. But we are still hoping to locate the 2 gorillas from this same family that we have not yet seen,” said ICCN Gorilla Monitoring Head Innocent Mburanumwe.

During the 16-month period from August 2007 to late January 2009 10 baby gorillas were born into 4 of the habituated families – the Kabirizi, Mapuwa, Lulengo and Mapuwa families – and 2 adult female gorillas previously non-identified (from non-habituated groups) have joined habituated gorilla families. Three gorillas that had been previously identified in the August 2007 census have not been found and are listed as missing.

Significantly no evidence of gorilla mortality was reported by Rangers, although 536 snares laid by poachers were found and removed by Park Rangers, representing a significant increase as compared to previous findings. Snares are laid to catch small antelope and other forest animals, but gorillas, especially infants, are sometimes caught in the snare and can suffer loss of limb or life.

Go to www.gorilla.cd for more information and to www.gorilla.cd/press to access the Mountain Gorilla Survey Report

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.

The Virunga National Park website has released a video of Miza (Mutazimiza) the baby gorilla orphaned last year during the attack on the Kabirizi family, and star of our book Looking for Miza which is her story about how she survivied the ordeal. After 14 months of conflict it is a huge relief to see that she is doing so well.

Meanwhile the ICCN rangers have joined rebels in the gorilla sector of Virunga National Park – the early progress is reported by Edmund Sanders in the Los Angeles Times

“Rebels and government officials tentatively agreed for the first time last month to work together in the gorilla sector. The agreement came a month after rebels seized the park’s headquarters in nearby Rumangabo.

As he recently resettled into his office at park headquarters under the new arrangement, De Merode said he hoped to dispatch 41 park rangers to join the 30 who already work in the gorilla sector. He also planned to re-establish five 24-hour patrol posts and resume formal surveying of the families.

But it remains unclear whether the government and rebels will be able to set aside their differences.

Park officials questioned the qualifications and political motives of rangers who stayed behind.

“These rangers are not fully trained in gorilla-monitoring,” De Merode said. “They’ve been a little cavalier.”

Government officials pressured all but one international conservationist group to suspend their work with the gorillas after the rebel takeover and discouraged tourism, saying the proceeds would fund the insurgency.

“They said I was a rebel,” Kanamahalagi said. “They spoiled my name.”

Park officials also have accused the rebels of attacking some rangers, often because of their ethnicity. Tutsi rangers, who are part of the same ethnic group as rebel leader Nkunda, were allowed to remain in the park, some say, although others were chased away.

“The risk was I would be killed,” said Innocent Mburanumwe, head of gorilla monitoring, who fled after the rebel takeover. He said rangers who tried to return were robbed and attacked.

Park officials also have accused rebels of killing and eating of two gorillas last year.

Rebels contend that their soldiers are too disciplined to ever hurt gorillas. They accuse park officials of corruption and mismanagement, saying they exaggerate the threat to gorillas in a bid for international support.

“They need to lie for their fundraising,” said Babou Amani, deputy spokesman for Nkunda’s movement, National Congress for the Defense of the People.

He said control of the gorilla sector fell into the rebels’ lap during an offensive to seize strategic land near the Ugandan border. But he said they took the responsibility seriously.

“For us, gorillas are worth more than diamonds,” Amani said.

To demonstrate their commitment, rebels have been organizing visits, a kind of guerrillas’ gorilla tour for journalists and others. A recent trip suggested that rangers are well-intentioned, if not always well-trained.”

Meanwhile, help has been proposed for orphaned gorillas.  A group of international conservation organizations is building a center to rescue, rehabilitate and reintroduce orphaned gorillas back into the wild.  The sanctuary will cover 150 hectares near Lubero in the northeastern corner of Congo and will cater for up to 30 gorillas.  The center $300,000 center will cost 100,000 to run each year,

To finance this U.S.Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Agency for International Development have put up some money, and so has The Walt Disney Company, which operates a number of animal parks in the United States and promotes conservation. Hopefuly lasting peace can be achieved in the region to make this center a success. Read more about it here

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.

Talks have begun between representatives of rebel forces fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and delegates from the Kinshasa government in Nairobi, Kenya. The discussions mediated by Olusegun Obasanjo (former president of Nigeria) hope to bring an end to fighting between the the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) and the army that has displaced about 250,000 people since August. Neither Kabila nor Nkunda attended the talks.

On Friday, the governments of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda agreed  to launch military operations against armed groups operating in Congolese territory as early as 2009. MONUC the United Nations mission in the country will also provide troops. But in response Hutu rebels operating in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo warned that any attempt to disarm their forces could spark a “long and dreadful war.”

In a related development, the EU declined to send additional troops to Congo because though the troops are urgently needed, the countries fear that “expanding commitments in Afghanistan mean that they have no soldiers to spare for other UN missions, such as the DR Congo”. But Belgium seems to be warming to the idea reports Radio Okapi. The Belgian ambassador de Gucht says Belgium is canvassing the EU to send a special force to eastern DRC.

 Meanwhle 71 rangers and their families from Virunga have sough refuge in IDP camps in Uganda following the latest conflict in North Kivu. Their situation is poor and they are surviving on rations provided through online donations.

Its amazing that the ICCN are able to conduct a gorilla census sin Vurunga National Park despite the continued conflict that is ongoing (even though most news agencies have tired of telling that story apart from Bloomberg who reports cooperative efforts between Congo and Rwanda).

Diddy at Bukima camp last year when he found Miza

Diddy and Innocent have revealed that not only have they found most gorilla families intact, but that there migraitons, and importantly, there have been some births. We are still waiting to hear about Miza and look at her photos. Her sister Mivumbi who rescued her when she was orphaned, has had an infant of her own. If you haven’t got it yet,  the childrens book Looking for Miza is a perfect Christmas gift for any child or adult.

Miza was orphaned last year and it was feard she was dying

Read more about the exciting survey and watch the videos from the field here

Emmanuel and the rangers have finally returned to the Mikeno sector of the Virunga National Park after 14 months of absence. They are conducting a census of the gorillas and have already met the Humba family. YOu can read about it on the Gorilla.cd blog

The story has been captured by AFP which is below
Gorilla love conquers war in DR Congo

Agence France-Presse
First Posted 19:05:00 11/24/2008

RUMANGABO — It’s a striking example of how a little love can overcome a whole lot of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Rebels and the government, who have blighted lush Nord-Kivu province with months of fighting, have cut a unique deal to allow armed park rangers back into the famed Virunga reserve to care for its long-neglected gorillas.

The deal will allow ranger Innocent Mburanumwe to be reunited with a bald blackback ape that has occupied his waking dreams for the past 15 months, ever since CNDP rebels took over the eastern gorilla sector of the park in September 2007 and forced the rangers to flee.

“Kadogo’s my favorite, because of all the ones I’ve seen, he’s the only one that is completely bald. Kadogo was born bald! I can’t wait to get up there to see him again.”

Last month, the rangers had to flee again, this time from Rumangabo with their families after the rebels swept through the southern sector of the park.

“I grabbed a kid in each arm and ran,” says Mburanumwe. His wife and six children remain behind in Goma at a camp for the rangers’ families housing 1,500.

Over the next week or so, hundreds of rangers will shoulder their Kalashnikovs and head into the bush from their Rumangabo headquarters to begin a census of the apes, keenly watched by their new rebel minders.

It is a unique situation in the battleground that is Nord-Kivu, the first time that an armed group has been allowed through a front line to go about their business freely.

At least that’s the plan, painstakingly worked out between park director Emmanuel De Merode, employed by the Kinshasa government, and rebel leader Laurent Nkunda at a meeting last week.

De Merode pores over the map of the park and smiles gamely when told he’s like a player in a wicked board game, minefields at every turn, only in his case it’s Congo’s bewildering array of armed groups. There’s the Mai Mai, the Rwandan FDLR rebels, the government forces, and of course, the CNDP, his new partners in conservation.

“It’s a complicated situation and they’re all involved in natural resource exploitation. Now it’s a little simpler because the park is all controlled by the CNDP. But it’s a difficult situation,” said the Kenya-raised Belgian, above the noise of a screaming baboon.

“There’s always controversy. But the message is very clear. We are only here to do park management and we’re doing it because it’s a world heritage site and also to protect the natural heritage which is extremely important to the economic future of the country.”

But ranger Roy Nkoma Musubao said he has no room for fear, particularly of the FDLR, whose illegal charcoal trade in the park poses the biggest risk to the rangers.

“This is my job, my lifeline. Armed groups or not, the job has got to be done,” said Musaboa, 120 of whose comrades have been killed since 1997.

De Merode commands 680 rangers, including many who stayed behind when the rebels advanced, notably Pierre-Canisius Kanamahalagi, a 52-year-old who wears smart city clothes and an air of authority.

“There’s a misconception put out by Kinshasa that the rangers were chased out” says Kanamahalagi. “They were ordered out by the government for propaganda reasons!”

“I’ve been called a rebel by some because I stayed on to look after the gorillas. But the management recognizes I’m a conservationist. Even a hero. A hero,” he says, emphasizing the last word.

De Merode is too diplomatic to say, but the mysterious presence of Kanamahalagi at the park’s headquarters is part of a delicate two-step with his new partners in conservation, the price to pay for being allowed back into the park.

No one can be certain the highly vulnerable apes, which have not been seen for 15 months, have survived unscathed. The park is home to 200 of the world’s 700 surviving great apes.

But Kanamahalagi insists they are safe. “The gorillas we’ve seen are in very good health, apart from their natural habitat damaged by FARDC [army] bombardment recently. Happily it didn’t affect the gorillas.”

Tellingly, De Merode, speaking separately, said such evidence is “anecdotal” and will have to be checked out by qualified personnel.

According to Mburanumwe, the partnership is working so far. “We embraced those who were here when we got back, so the coalition is working.”

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/world/view/20081124-174114/Gorilla-love-conquers-war-in-DR-Congo

GOMA, Congo, Nov 10 (Reuters) - East Congo’s conflict has put more than a quarter of the world’s last mountain gorillas at the mercy of armed groups who hunt and camp in their territory, park officials said on Monday.

With no rangers left to protect or care for them, the gorillas face even greater risk of extinction, they said.

Recent fighting between Tutsi rebels and the government army and its militia allies has displaced hundreds of thousands of people in Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu province, home to the Virunga Park, Africa’s oldest national park. It has also eliminated all protection and effective conservation monitoring for 200 of the last remaining 700 mountain gorillas in the world, who live in the forested hills of Virunga, on the border with Uganda and Rwanda.

Virunga’s Gorilla Sector has been in the hands of rebel General Laurent Nkunda’s fighters since September 2007 and the Rumangabo park headquarters, from which conservation operations were run, fell to a rebel assault in October this year.

More than 50 wildlife rangers, who had spent years protecting the gorillas and other animals in Virunga, were forced to run for their lives, joining 200,000 other refugees sheltering around the North Kivu provincial capital Goma.

“It’s not possible now to have any news about the gorillas,” one displaced Virunga park ranger, Diddy Mwanaka, told Reuters.

“We don’t know about their health, their security or if they remain in a secure place or not,” he said, speaking at a makeshift camp housing refugee rangers and their families.

The park’s website, www.gorilla.cd, chronicles the Oct. 26 capture of the park’s HQ by the rebels and its consequences.

Samantha Newport, communications director of the Virunga National Park, said park authorities were extremely concerned that the unprotected mountain gorilla families, or solitary gorillas, could now be caught up in the crossfire of combat.

“No one is looking after them in any way, shape or form,” she said. At least 40 percent of the Virunga Park was no longer under the control of the Congolese Wildlife Authority (ICCN).

Newport said that while park authorities did not believe that gorillas were being singled out for killing, they and other animals such as elephants, hippos and antelopes faced threats from armed groups, poachers, land invaders and charcoal burners who destroyed their forest habitat.

POACHING

“All these rebel groups, from whatever side, use the park to train, to camp out, to rest and to eat,” she said.

“We have problems of poaching of elephants, hippos, buffalo and antelope, just to name a few as a result of the presence of these armed groups in the park,” Newport added, saying 40 elephants had been poached in Virunga this year alone.

Over the years, east Congo’s conflict, which has persisted despite the formal end of a 1998-2003 war in the vast, former Belgian colony, has taken its toll on both the gorillas and the ICCN rangers who protect them.

More than 150 rangers have been killed in the last decade protecting parks in east Congo.

Virunga’s Gorilla Sector suffered repeated attacks in 2007 during which 10 mountain gorillas were killed.

Newport said Nkunda’s rebels saw the south of the border park as strategic territory. They used it as a supply route.

“At the moment, there is no chance of going back to the gorilla sector… When you have such a vulnerable, critically endangered population of animals, you really need to keep track of what is going on,” she added.

Newport said that unlike other endangered species, mountain gorillas had never managed to reproduce in captivity.

“So the ones we have in the wild, that’s it, when they’re gone, that’s it, they’ve gone,” she said.

Meanwhile two independent news sources have said the rebels continue to make progress and, as of Wednesday night, CNDP rebels had advanced to about 10 kilometres south of Kanyabayonga, the town looted by government troops earlier this week which is around 175 kilometres (110 miles) north of the Nord-Kivu capital Goma.