There is need of working together to save the threatened species
The eastern DRC is facing armed crisis for about three decades now. Protected areas are among the vulnerable areas as they are used by armed groups as their shelter and source of food and income. Virunga National park is suffering from that as a consequence of armed conflicts. The different armed groups in Eastern DRC have found their refuge into the Park and depend on its resources. Main damage concerns:
this April; about 14 elephants have been killed by armed groups in 2006, about 400 hippos have been killed by armed groups number of Kobs are killed daily charcoal making and illegal timber trade
some of the armed groups have created some networks to facilitate illegal fishing in the Lake they don’t allow rangers and conservation actors to access the area they are allowing cultivation into the protected area there are some gunshots exchange between rangers and armed groups
In order to get the issue solved or reduced, there have been several initiatives at political and military levels to try some solutions: Involve the army to support rangers and organize joint patrols in different areas Involve different stakeholders from various areas to help conservation dedicated organizations to protect the park Create some local networks to gather information about the different areas occupied by armed groups Support park rangers in their daily patrols and provide them field equipments
All these activities are done and need to be done at daily basis. Due to the exceptional situation in DRC, there are daily cases that need support to avoid any political involvement in some of the park issues. By Helping Virunga, you help to protect threatened species. Thanks to Robert J. and Nacy A. for your support
Virunga National park located in Eastern DRC is among the richest protected area in terms of animals and plants. Some of these species cannot be found every where apart from the Virunga surrounding regions (e.g. Gorillas).
Surrounding communities as future threats to protected forests
Actions to be taken for both sides
Picture 3 –Need to work together to stop the deforestation of the park.
Protected areas in Africa are seen like a store where people must be going to collect resource in scarce periods. This is one side of the vision while conservation institutions and organisation see that as a last shelter to protect wildlife species and enable environmental services for the benefit of the world. This being said, local people are aware of the legal prohibitions about park resources but they do want to get in for survival.For this reason, the mandated institutions have rangers trained and equipped to make sure that the area is surveyed.
Why rangers do they go for patrolling? They do patrols to discourage and arrest illegal collectors of resources such as poachers who enter into the park to kill wildlife. For poachers, they don’t care about the status of animal (they don’t care about the number of individuals which are still alive in the world), settlers and invaders who are occupying different habitats that are suitable for wildlife. they do patrols to make sure that the conservation law is respected and have data collected to enable monitoring of the park status. What do rangers find in the bush? During patrols, rangers in the field they might find armed poachers, settlers, armed groups people, alive wildlife, etc. Once in the field, rangers meet with armed poachers and people and they have to exchange boo lets. Because of this, there are some rangers killed or injured on duty. We’ve got about 100 rangers killed in Virunga since the 90s (civil conflict in DRC). They also have to destroy some illegal camps and arrest owners and take them to court or get them back to their villages after awareness sessions. What data do they collect? Once in the field, rangers collect information about wildlife seen, their sightings and dropping; dead induces, poaching signs and ecosystem status. This information collected is compiled as reports and used for management purposes.
Does field data used for action? Data collected and entered into computers, the report is sent out to managers and partners to make sure that they are aware of different threats in the protected area. The report states also some of recommendations to be meant by different authorities if they want the park to be protected. This has been used to convince local authorities to support conservation efforts, but also to determine which areas must be targeted as priority.
Pic4- Political awareness meeting in Goma
Mushroom in Virunga National Park As in the previous information, Mont Hoyo is very interesting for both tourism and research. For tourism as it has some potentials described latter and for research as there has been no research in the forest as we know. The plan was to survey the area in order to gather biological information and give some useful recommendations. As a forest reserve and following DRC law, it must be fully protected and no human activity is allowed. In our visit to Mont Hoyo, we noticed that there are several illegal activities carried by local population and some armed people. It has been a plan to get the army responsible to know that there are some illegal activities carried by armed people (soldiers) and nothing has been done on their side. In order to ensure that there is no shooting from these poachers, some actions were planned to arrest the poachers without shooting as people in the area are still stressed by war. We planned the survey and get military and political authorities to know that we are planning a survey. Even if the security situation has worsened in the neighbouring areas of Mont Hoyo, this plan has been used to arrest the armed poachers in Mont Hoyo. They were called to join the researcher team for administrative purposes and guide them while the real purpose was to get them arrested. This has been done and they are under arrest. The other case is, during the biological surveys conducted in Semuliki (Virunga Park); during the research work, several poaching materials are destroyed and removed and large area is covered and give an global picture of the status of the area to manager. E.g.: there have been a hundred of snares removed from the Park, some area not covered by ranger patrols have been covered and the local community sensitised during evening walk in the village.
Left: Rope snare sample found in Virunga National Park - Right: Ranger in research team getting GPS data With the money gained from surveys, local communities are aware that, if the protected area is destroyed there will never be any research in the area and they may not get any visitor compared to other areas where they are helping protected area managers to conserve.
The Mont Hoyo is located in Eastern DRC (E 1.24750 - N 29.80918) at 125 km far from beni town in Irumu territory, ranging from 1300 m to 1500 m of elevation. Mont Hoyo is among touristic areas which had some socioeconomic impacts on local communities livelihoods. With different armed crisis and presence of different factions of militias, it has been abandoned by tour operators and ICCN (the Congolese conservation agency) followed by people displacement. ICCN left the site in 1996 during the first liberation war led by Mzee Laurent Kabila and local population left the area in 2002. They are resettling now from the different IDPs (Internal Displaced People) camps. Mont Hoyo has been created in 1947 and there is no clear idea about its richness in terms of fauna and flora a part from the tourism attraction about graves. Information collected on ground states that there is some animals present there such as Okapi, warthog, porcupine, pangolin, chimpanzee, elephant, etc. Mont Hoyo was among the best destination for visitors and there has been a wonderful guest house, some people who has visited it said. Two main groups inhabit the surrounding areas of Mont Hoyo: Lesse group and Pygmies and their local economy depends on tourism. Nowadays, they are trying to resettle but there is no sign of economic activities. Their main activities are agriculture and hunting. The nearest market where they can go sell their goods is located at 25 km!
Pygmy camp (about 34 people) Pygmy with Deo During our last travel to Mont Hoyo, we had to walk for 13.5 km two ways (=27 km) in order to reach the summit. The road is bad conditions and it cannot be used even by a motorcycle. There are about 13 small bridges to be rehabilitated and 1 long one (12 m).
During our travel, there is no where you can buy even a sweet or small snacks! But, everyone is praying so that ICCN can come back as it’s the only way the Mont can be reopened and revive the tourism activities. Unfortunately, due to the absence of ICCN, who is lacking field equipments for rangers to be deployed in the area, there is a traditional and armed poaching going on against monkeys and duikers.
It’s a wonderful place where you can visit graves and get to know about Pygmies and their life. But there are some actions to be done before with support from everyone who wants this site to be renewed: bridges renovation, house renovation, field equipments for trackers (rangers), support to local communities, etc.
Mont Hoyo Guest house View of the grave
During this two weeks, we’ve been conducting biological surveys in Semuliki area (Virunga National park). I got to look for cutters and trackers who coils help us to get into the forest to find our lines.
Later on, I discovered that the people we were using are organised into a local association called OAN (Organisation des Amis de la Nature = Organisation for friends of nature). Among the activities they are conducting: chimpanzee monitoring local communities of Mwenda have been able to protect a patch of forest closed to Mt Ruwenzori (DRC) where occur chimpanzees. They have been following these cousins of human without any support (technical or financial). They are kin monitoring chimps even if they don’t have any field equipment, field ration during monitoring or data sheet, etc. If supported, they can help to save these threatened species of which their numbers is going down everyday. They have field staff moving in the field everyday hiking the base of Ruwenzori. vegetable farming Wildlife protection is the key of their activities but they add in some other activities that can support the wildlife related activities. They’ve got some farm to grow vegetables at small scale. It’s known that the small scale agricultural activities is enough to fulfil all the food needs for the household. But when it comes to diversifying economic activities, you need to increase and improve your techniques of growing food. Thus, this local organisation needs to get different agricultural inputs to make their activity important for conservation. tree nursing Our country (DRC) is among countries where citizen still depend more than 95% on natural timber resources for different options without alternatives or suitable techniques. For cooking or building, the main product to use is still timber. People have to look for trees to cut to fulfil these needs. In order to reduce and make people aware of the future danger, OAN has been trying to put in place some areas to make available trees for plantation in the village. Still, the area covered and the target is still not enough. This has been made possible in combination with public awareness and sensitisation.
Charcoal made out of wood information gathering about wildlife killing protect wildlife doesn’t rely only on rangers or again on patrols. There is need of information gathering in order to get some targeted places chosen by poachers. This information can be made available through different channels. In this specific area (Mwenda), this local organisation is helping to provide information about different actors involved in illegal exploitation of natural resources within the Park. They collect information from different villagers and get information to managers through different ways, depending on how the manager is confident to them and dedicated to the protection of the Park.
So, it’s possible to protect protected areas and community forests with local organisations within the village by providing them capacity!
At the creation of Virunga Park, local communities used to fish in Lake Edward with traditional tools and equipment under the local management structures. During colonial period, the Park was created and included Lake Edward as part of Virunga park. As part of the culture, the Park Manager has left the fishing privilege to communities and allowed local population to fish but under a cooperative structure. As per now, the situation has worsened and became a threat toward conservation of the Park. At the creation of the Park, there were only two fishing villages and now there are more than 15 villages. These villages has also increased in size.
Nyakakoma fishing villages 2006 If fish was biological resource, it could be more important for local communities. In the region, fish is more important as it provides different benefits:
Beside these opportunities, fish is source of conflict between different stakeholders: conservation institution, marine and infantry forces, public services, local communities and administration.
The over fishing has led people to adapt themselves to the current situation and develop survival mechanism which implies fauna poaching, armed group creation, deforestation and encroachment. We’ve been working with the different communities to solve this conflict.
Meeting with stakeholders This has been done through a participatory process:
It appears that when interest of different groups are threatened, it become easy to get people involved into a resolution conflict process.
How do we go for fish? The main interest is that local communities has noticed that fish stock has decreased and this has led to involvement of communities into the process.
Virunga National Park located in the Eastern of the Democratic Republic of Congo is managed by ICCN with support from different International NGO. While it enhabits several species and endemic species, this protected area is facing different problems from various stakeholders. As the whole surrounding countries relay on natural resources to survive: timber, firewood, medecinal plants, water in some areas; there are most of the time confrontations between Managers and local communities. People are collecting resources from the Virunga for various reasons:
About 90% of local communitites surrounding Virunga Park are farmers with small lands and traditionnal means and technics. They most of them producing for their basic needs and the supplement is sold to get some cash to fulfil other needs like medication, school fees for their kids, etc. Some of theme are using Park land to get more profits or they settle within the Park and leave their original lands. This has been one of the difficult conflict to solve as at some cases. The poaching is also one mean used by some communities to get meat as animal protein source for the family. This has been said, some communities are poaching because they’ve lost their animals and need meat; others are doing that as their habit. People are collecting firewood from the Park either illegally (none is allowed to collect something from the Park as it is classified under the UICN category of National park but also, as directed by the DRC conservation law) or “legally” (in some areas, as a response to the local communities pressure, the Park Manager has agreed to allow firewood collection at weekly basis but without a legal frame).
Some actions could be useful at this stage as like to help local communities to develop agroforestry techniques so that they don’t rely on Park resources much, but also get the two parties to have a memorandum of understanding about firewood collection and design a management mechanism about it as there is none for now. The only limit is logistics which is a good help to allow us making this link. 2. for cash These resources harvested are not used only for basic needs in some places by some actors. Most of illegal resource harvesting done by armed groups is for commercial purposes. They do collect different products including animals which are killed in order to be sold as bushmeat or for their trophies and ivories. This has a direct effect on animal population as the number decreases when there is heavy poaching and less antipoaching actions conducted by park rangers and funds available for ranger rations and field equipments. Local communities are also using some local agreement (firewood collection) to get money instead of using the different resources for their households direct benefit. For example, firewood collected is being sold instead of being used. This is also the case even regarding some crops, people are cultivating and harvest for sale and then buy food from other areas, even if it’s expensive compared to their villages.
This is the destructive exploitation of resources in the Park as it involves armed people and targets theratened species. 3. for their own activities Other members of local communities are harvesting resources from the Park to develop their own work as they are using medecinal plants to heal people or using wild materials to make some products to be sold: baskets, mats, etc. These people are easy to work with as they are willing to protect their basic materials and continue getting money from their expertise. Some of them are making honey and don’t have required equipments to be competitive with other products, others are making souvenirs, etc.
Help park people to work with community in 2008
Wildlife is more interesting when people try to look into their eyes. When you try to look into wildlife eyes, you think about their needs in terms of habitat, food, shelter, movement. When people kill wildlife, they don’t look into their eyes; they look on their bodies, shape and trophies, etc.
Virunga NP is facing poaching for both commercial and domestic needs in bushmeat. In order to discourage this process which can lead to species depletion, rangers carry out patrols in the Park with support from NGOs working in Conservation. This action is done also during any monitoring of wildlife in the park.
This has been one of the toughest missions of rangers during these two decades in Virunga Park and ICCN (Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature) has lost over 100 rangers on duty. As a consequence, there are widows and orphans without assistance. Helping rangers, saves the most biodiverse and the oldest Park of Africa!
We are proud of individual donors who have donated to this project and specially Robert J.G.
LIFE OF PEOPLE SAVING WILDLIFE AND DIFFICULTIES As stated in my first post, Virunga National Park is the oldest Park in Africa created in 1925 and recognised by UNESCO as a World heritage Site in 1979. To enable its protection, the Park is managed by a public Institution which has been weakened by the different socioeconomic crisis’s in the eastern DRC. The ICCN (Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature) has employed more than 600 rangers to protect the Park. These rangers are working everyday and living with their families in the ranger posts inside the Park. Most of these rangers have wives and children. In our recent census in one ranger post (28 rangers), the average of household is 9. Rangers have been working since the creation of the Park and are paid less now despite the bonus given to them by International NGOs. The effect of the civil war is still harming the park and field staff. There have been more than 100 rangers killed and many others injured. Infrastructure Kabasha Before
Kabasha after construction It is very difficult to imagine that people are still living under these circumstances. Socioeconomic life It’s difficult to support conservation activities without thinking about people lives. As workers, rangers are being badly/less paid even though there is a support from International NGOs to try to supplement their thin and unimaginable salaries. The overall life in Africa is not only based on salaries but also on economic activities which can supplement the household budget. Rangers wives have been doing several things in order to get the household’s life better: some are selling local beer, fish, basic manufactured products, others are selling agricultural products. They needed to get more funds to get started in case there is one of them who has failed in her business. I have been visiting rangers since 2003, and this year I’ve been thinking of helping rangers’ wives to set up a group to enable themselves to help each other. They’ve established a local committee and they have secured 50$ from their own activities and got support from us. It has been a good time for us as we’ve got support and we’ll try to work hard to improve our activities to support our family’s life.
Lulimbi womens group in an evaluation meeting. At local level, NGOs are supporting protected area management activities through a strong partnership. There is another idea of local conservation partnership which we are setting up. We think, as conservationist workers, we are getting revenues from services which are paid to us by NGOs where we are employees. There is also need of helping other conservationists who are suffering because their fathers are working in Virunga. So, as workers we’ve put in place a monthly basket to enable us to assist rangers and their family but in a social way. Some conservation NGO workers are giving monthly amount and plan to support some social actions in the Park. In most of the Park stations, they are schools put in place to cater/educate rangers’ children, but they don’t get any support. This quarter, we’ve been able to assist a school for Rangers’ children in Kabaraza with pens, pencils, chalks and exercise books. This is one of the cases but there is need to support the other 4 ranger stations in the Virunga NP.
Types of donated school supplies
School facilities donated for the ranger’s children The situation is much more complicated than we think!
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