Congo Rangers

Category: General | Date: Jul 18 2006 | By: admin

We set up this blog to record the story of a unit of exceptional Rangers from Democratic Republic of Congo.

The unit was formed in January 2006 to protect Virunga National Park, Africa’s oldest national park, formed in 1925. Stretching for 200 miles along Congo’s eastern border, the park includes glacier-topped mountains, forest and sprawling savannah. It is home to Mountain Gorillas, hippos, forest elephants, okapi, and numerous other mammals, reptiles and birds.

These Rangers were picked and trained to form a rapid intervention team capable of handling some of the worst conservation crises in the world. These Rangers have protected Virunga throughout Congo’s civil war, often without pay and risking their lives on a daily basis. As such, these Rangers have probably experienced some of the most difficult conditions imaginable in wildlife conservation, and yet they remain utterly committed to protecting Congo’s incredible wildlife. Since the beginning of the war, in 1996, 97 Rangers have been killed on active service. 

 
The team itself was handpicked by Conrad Thorp, a former colonel in the British Special Boat Service, and given Special Forces training for 6 months. To date the Rangers have been deployed to help protect the last northern white rhinos from imminent extinction in Garamba National Park, and have helped stem the land invasions on the eastern foothills of Mt Tchiaberimu, where a small population of Lowland Gorillas is being protected. More recently the Rangers have protected the hippos, forest elephants and buffalo at Ishango, on the northern shores of Lake Edward, from a potential Mai Mai rebel attack. The Mai Mais were responsible for the hippo slaughter at the end of 2006.

The Congo Rangers struggle to tackle some of the most challenging conservation problems of our time, in one of the most dangerous places on earth. Their stories have never been told. This blog serves as a living record of their incredible achievements.