Congo Rangers

Category: Thoughts | Date: Oct 12 2006 | By: admin

ICCN General Direction
Kinshasa
09 Oct 2006

Dear Mr. Lawrence Anthony,
We have read with great shock and surprise the communication by the Earth Org News stating ‘Ugandan Rebel army pledges to save highly endangered Rhinos’, also published on your website.

We must remind you that the management of DRC’s Natural Heritage and protected areas is the sole responsibility of the Institute Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN). It is the ICCN alone, and not international third parties, who has the competence to engage in the defense and conservation of our thretened natural resources, with support from the Government and our partners.

ICCN has absolutely no contract of collaboration or management with your organisation concerning the protection of our threatened parks, especially not Garamba National Park, a World Heritage Site and last refuge of the Northern White Rhino.

As you well know, we have signed a contract with the African Parks Foundation (APF) to ensure the park has sufficient managerial capacity to respond to the magnitude and intensity of the threats imposed upon the flagship species of this protected area, and we will will continue to have confidence in them until we have reason to believe otherwise.

Further more, we appreciate and respect our contract signed with APF in November 2005 and we intend to maintain our partnership with them. You were made well aware of this some months ago by the ICCN’s General Direction.
Thus, any attempts to take such initiatives as you have done with the LRA rebel group could never engage the ICCN, or APF, and certainly not the Government of DRC or UNESCO who assumes partial responsibility for the park as a World Heritage Site. Could your organisation not find other things to lobby for, rather than pleading the interests of DRC for which your organisation has no mandate? I must inform you that appropriate mechanisms are already engaged and definitive solutions found to ensure the protection of Garamba National Park.

We strongly deny moreover, your statement suggesting that the LRA has already killed more than 12 rangers from Garamba National Park (ref: http://wildlifedirect.org/congo-ranger/?p=33).

Before closing, we wish to address the confusion you have concerning the location of the rhinos (to the south) and that of the clashes between MONUC and the LRA. A good look at the map should help you understand the situation better. And just for your information, Okapi do not exist in Garamba.

We close by asking you to refrain from using Congo’s rhinos as a commercial vehicle for your own organisation’s interests, and at the same time we would like to assure you that should this happen again, ICCN and our partners reserve the right to prosecute.

Signed
Pastor Cosma Wilungula Balongelwa
Administrator for the General Direction