Mai Mai Boom, Hippo Bust
Category: Crises | Date: Aug 28 2006 | By: admin
I received a report in yesterday from the ICCN that over 150 hippos, 20 elephants, 50 buffalo and in excess of 200 antelope had been killed and butchered over the last two months by a group of Mai Mai living on the southern shores of Lake Edward.
Becoming a rare sight - Hippo with Calf
Kakule’s Story
Category: Rangers | Date: Aug 15 2006 | By: admin
This is a short interview carried out by Conrad Thorpe with Kakule Ngereza, a young ranger in Virunga National Park. The interview took place in the shade of a Candelabra Euphorbia tree. The young man Kakule and Conrad sat on the chassis of a vehicle drawn, water tank which was now ruined and filled with bullet holes.
Kakule on an early morning run at Ishango
Future Plans
Category: Rangers | Date: Aug 15 2006 | By: admin
The Congo Rangers are now equipped with the skills and capacity to carry out complex patrolling and law enforcement activities in even the most dangerous of areas.
A truck ambushed by Rwandan rebels in Virunga National Park in 2004. A key role for the Virunga Rangers is to restore peace and stability in and around the park
A New Home is Planned for the Rangers
Category: Logistics | Date: Aug 15 2006 | By: admin
Having now completed their training, the anti-poaching unit will be based at Mutsora (the headquarters of the Northern Sector), which is currently under rehabilitation by the London Zoological Society, the European Union and the Africa Conservation Fund.
The Main Building at Mutsora, recently refurbished by the Zoological Society of London with EU funding
SOS Garamba
Category: Active Service, Rangers | Date: Aug 15 2006 | By: admin
Garamba National Park in North Eastern Congo has been in a critical state for the last few years, suffering from extensive poaching at the hands of heavily armed Sudanese Cavaliers known as the Janjaweed. Within just a couple of years they had managed to poach a sub-species of white rhino to the brink of extinction. From March 2001 through to March 2006 the population crashed from around 30 rhinos to just 4 individuals.
About as close as I may ever come to seeing the Northern White Rhino
Elie Mundima - Advance Force Commander
Category: Rangers | Date: Aug 15 2006 | By: admin
In November 2005, Elie was selected for Instructor Training at Ishango, having shown loads of promise during the selection phase.
Elie giving orders at the pass-out parade where he picked up a medal for Top Student
Gorillas in a Mess
Category: Active Service, Mountain Gorillas, Rangers | Date: Aug 15 2006 | By: admin
In late January 2006 Norbert Mushenzi, the ICCN Director responsible for the Northern Sector of the Virunga National Park, received urgent news that the eastern flanks of the gorilla habitat had come under attack by illegal cultivators.
Mother and baby under threat
The Ranger Training at Ishango - How it All Happened
Category: Logistics, Rangers | Date: Aug 14 2006 | By: admin
The only place in the Virunga National Park that I thought was suitable for ranger training was a remote and disused tourist site at Ishango on the banks of the River Semliki, in the northern sector of the Virunga National Park. Ishango had been abandoned during the war and was at one point occupied by Ugandan rebels. Now it lay in ruins and begged to be put to good use.
Ishango training centre - the early days!
An exceptional team of rangers in Congo
Category: Rangers | Date: Aug 10 2006 | By: admin
We set up this blog to record the story of a unit of exceptional Congolese rangers formed in December 2005 in Virunga National Park. These rangers were picked to form a rapid intervention team capable of handling some of the worst conservation crises in the world.
The Advance Force on parade
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