Focus Magazine publishes story on Mountain Gorillas and Rangers
Category: Mountain Gorillas, Press, Rangers | Date: Jul 11 2007 | By: admin
Yesterday Focus Magazine in Germany published a long story about Virunga National Park, Congo Rangers and Mountain Gorillas. The story was written by Sebastian who visited me in early May with my boss Christophe from FZS. I wrote a post about it back then. Go to the link below and you will see the full story.
http://www.focus.de/wissen/wissenschaft/natur/tid-6786/berggorillas_aid_65963.html
Donations since mid-March to end May - amazing generosity
Category: Rangers, Your Donations | Date: Jul 03 2007 | By: admin
Since my last post about donations on 15th March and until 31st May, I have received the following:
Open donations: $3,703.76
Salary Bonuses - 12
Patrol Rations - 12
Uniforms for Rangers - 7
Patrol Boots - 5
First aid kits - 6
The uniforms and boots are on order from South Africa. I have donations for 19 sets of uniforms and 41 pairs of boots now since I started the blog. I have ordered 50 sets of uniform and 100 pairs of boots from Manchester Outfitters in Nairobi and will make up the difference from the open donations. It is worth ordering in bulk because of the logistics of getting the uniforms to Congo. They have to be flown in ideally because the border crossings can be complicated when you have this kind of equipment. Basically the uniforms look like military uniforms - it is the badge of ICCN that differentiates them - but customs can be complicated because of this.
The patrol rations and salary bonuses are used each month to contribute to the support of the Advance Force of Rangers, who are 49 men in total.
The first aid kits are locally acquired, so that is easy. We provide first aid kits each time the Rangers go on patrol.
In June Chris A also made a $2,000 donation for the Rangers, following the attack of the gorilla sector in the north of Virunga park. Thank you Chris for your amazing generosity, as always.
And thank you to each and every one of you who reads my blog, comments on my blog, and makes donations. It makes the world of difference to have this kind of support both for me and for the Rangers of the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature.
Congo Park Rangers Bring Global Attention To Endangered African Wildlife
Category: Press, Rangers | Date: Jun 26 2007 | By: admin
This story on Global Voices Online has just come to my attention… it has been a busy time so I don’t get to see everything in the press. Ndesanjo Macha wrote a great story about how the Rangers in Congo are blogging from Virunga National Park about their work to protect the mountain gorillas, hippos, elephants and other wildlife that is gradually returning after the country’s civil war. Thank you Ndesanjo. Click on the picture below and you will see the whole story.
Medical supplies for Rangers and their families
Category: Rangers, Your Donations | Date: Jun 15 2007 | By: admin
Here are the receipts of the medicine we provided to the Southern Sector Headquarters of Virunga National Park, Rumagabo. I mentioned this on my post of 17th of May. The medicine was given to the nurse at the infirmary. This medicine will be used not only for the Rangers, but also for their families. Thank you very very much for your generosity.
Augustin, Kabirizi and BBC
Category: Crises, Mountain Gorillas, Press, Rangers | Date: Jun 13 2007 | By: admin
I was sent the link below last week by friends of mine. This was done by a photographer, Georgina, who came to Congo a couple of months ago. We spent time with her up at Camp Karema with Augustin., right when we were just starting up there. Augustin as you know is the head of the patrol post at Bukima, and has been leading the patrols today and yesterday to identify the individuals of the Kabirizi family. I am sure you have all been following the atrocious events on Paulin’s blog - of the killing of Rubiga and the orphan Ndakasi.
It has been a really hectic few days and I am reeling somewhat. I know Paulin will be updating his blog later on today, but I just wanted to say thank you for all the support I have received over recent days in relation to this brutal slaying. Thank you also for the donations.
Donations, gorillas and the boss visit in Congo
Category: Active Service, Mountain Gorillas, Rangers, Your Donations | Date: May 17 2007 | By: admin
Christof Schenck, Frankfurt Zoological Society’s Executive Director, arrived in DRC a week ago to see how we were getting along. Christof has been wanting to come and visit the Congo for three years now, but every time he planned to come over, renewed fighting would break out between different rebels factions, or between rebels and the Congolese military, thousands of people would evacuate across the border to Rwanda or Uganda, and the park in which we work would become impossible to visit. Furthermore, all Embassies would advise against all travel to the region, and although that advice may well still stand today, Christof did at last manage to find his window of opportunity. He made it to the Congo! He also brought with him three journalists - Michael, Sebastian and Norbert, who will be covering the story when they get back to Germany. For us it was a very special occasion and a huge honor to have the ‘Grande Fromage’ come and visit our project and different activities. The ICCN even sent over the Head of International Cooperation from Kinshasa to welcome him to Congo!
First up, of course, were the gorillas, but not before a quick trip to the HQ of the gorilla sector to hand over two vehicles (one of which was purchased with funds raised through Paulin’s blog - thanks again Chris!!), 5 desk tops, 5 lap-tops, three printers, a projector and screen, 11 office tables, 36 chairs, a conference table, 2 solar systems, and a large stock of drugs for the medical dispensary (which was also purchased through the blog). See photo below.
We spent two days in the company of gorillas… the first day with the Kabarizi family who has just had another newborn - just two days old - and we had the great luck to be joined by Anne Hammil from the IISD and Ellen Brown from WCS (who has a blog on her work up in Epulu).
This is Anne with the photographers behind her!
The following day we went to see Rugendo - very different family of 12 individuals - and a very different family dynamic. Rugendo means wanderer, and he wanders much further than any other family. In fact he wanders right out of the forest and into the community land where food is plentiful. This however causes problems with local communities, and so it is important to involve them in conservation activities.
Before leaving, we met with some Pygmies who live around the edge of the park. They have been marginalized from society, having left their traditional way of life in the forest but without having found acceptance by the Bantu, they have no access to education or health care, and although getting more ’street-wise’ they originally had no real concept of ownership over land or plants - it just didn’t figure in pygmy logic - so if they saw a banana plant growing somewhere they would simply help themselves. This got them a really bad reputation for thieves… despite the fact that this land that the bananas are now growing on, did once in fact ‘belong’ to them… Christof gave all the women skirts and tops, and for the men, two pairs of jeans… it is important for us conservationists to work with the pygmies as well as other local communities living around the park if we are to have a chance of saving the gorillas in the long term, and getting to know them over a song and a dance is a first step…
Next up was a flight to Ishango and then a hike up the active volcano to spend the night on the crater rim… to be continued…
Technorati : congo, drc, fzs, gorilla, virunga, wildlifedirect
Military training camp in Virunga National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site
Category: Crises, Rangers | Date: May 03 2007 | By: admin
The Congolese military are going to set up a military training camp at Nyaleke, inside Virunga National Park. I was told today that after huge efforts by UNESCO, the European Union, the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICCN) and other conservation NGOs over many many months, all efforts have failed and we are soon going to see thousands of Congolese soldiers receiving training within the borders of one of the world’s most spectacular national parks.
This is not a regular military training camp. It is called a “camp de brassage” and is one of many such camps set up for the training, redeployment and demobilization of the Congolese military. While these camps are a crucial part of the peace process in Congo, placing them within the park is potentially very damaging.
Using Nyaleke as military camp - with the presence of potentially up to 4,000 former rebels being integrated into the regular army - not only poses a serious threat to the future of Virunga National Park but is also illegal according to the laws of DRC. The camp is clearly within the parameters of Virunga, about 11 km east of Beni.
This aerial photo shows the demarcation of the park, and the location of the camp inside the park.
The Dutch government financed the establishment of the military camp at Nyaleke. The camp was actually operational throughout 2006 but was due to be moved.
Virunga National Park was established as Africa’s first national park in 1925 and became a World Heritage Site in 1979. ICCN is committed to preserving the wildlife within the park after a 10-year civil war that saw most of the infrastructure destroyed and poaching soar. So it is simply not the right place to have a military camp. I am still making enquiries as to what has gone wrong with the attempts to prevent this and move the military camp to somewhere outside of the park. We are looking into a number of issues: why did the Dutch government fund a camp inside the park? What can we do to stop a disaster in the making?
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Congolese soldier sitting on a dead elephant that was poached
Technorati : beni, congo, drc, eu, iccn, nyaleke, unesco, virunga, wildlifedirect
Congo Ranger shot and killed because he was trying to protect wildlife from armed poachers
Category: Crises, Rangers, Thoughts | Date: Apr 20 2007 | By: admin
On 18th April the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that a Ranger in Nyaruhangi, in Virunga
National Park, was shot dead by armed men assumed to be from the FARDC during the night of the 17th. Paul Bagambe Baibutsa was Chief of the Ruti Patrol Post. It seems that Bagambe was targeted as he was seen as an obstacle to animal poaching. I met him a couple of times but didn’t know him too well. Other rangers tell me that he was a brave man and spoke out against the Congolese army illegally poaching in the park. He was shot through the shoulder a couple of years ago but fortunately survived. This time, sadly, he wasn’t so lucky. I have promised to provide some support to his family to try and help them through the difficult times ahead. May his soul rest in peace.Â
Dr Richard Leakey says African initiatives key to conservation
Category: General, Rangers | Date: Apr 16 2007 | By: admin
Dr Richard Leakey, Chairman of WildifeDirect, discusses a new way to get help directly to conservationists in Africa working in isolated and often dangerous conditions.
Dr Leakey is credited with putting an end to the slaughter of elephants in Kenya in the 1980s and has taken on the cause of Congo’s Mountain Gorillas. Mountain Gorillas are critically endangered with only 700 individuals remaining in the world; about 380 of these are in the Virunga Volcanoes Conservation Area, shared by Congo, Rwanda and Uganda.
Technorati : congo, drc, richard leakey, wildlifedirect
Back at Camp Karema after evacuation last week
Category: Active Service, Mountain Gorillas, Rangers | Date: Apr 11 2007 | By: admin
We are now back at Camp Karema after last week’s evacuation.
The Rangers are on patrol and monitoring the activities of the Mountain Gorillas near Bikenge. These are 3 families in total.
One of the families is the Humba family, and here is one of the 9-member family members below.
More to come soon.
Technorati : bukima, fzs, iccn, karema, mikeno, mountain gorilla, wildlifedirect
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