Category: Conservation

Major causes of declines in wildlife in developing countries witnessed during the recent decades have been population growth, habitat fragmentation, inadequate land use practices and management, lack of economic alternatives, and unsustainable use of resources. In a conflict region like the Easternof the Democratic Republic of Congo, the fauna has been targeted by different armed groups and local people for meat and illegal wildlife and wildlife product trafficking. Among species that have been most poached is the common hippopotamus.

In Virunga National Park for example, numbers dropped by 98% from 30,000 in the 1970s to 629 individuals in 2006. With increased patrolling and transboundary cooperation between the DR Congo and Uganda park authorities, there is hope that hippopotamuses will still exist in Virunga National as the Ishasha river still inhabit a bit of hippopotamus population.

The patrolling efforts along the hippopotamus habitats are still low and there is need of closer monitoring to protect them from poaching for bushmeat.

Thanks to Robert J., Anna, Jessica, Emmerentiane and Antonio for their support to our activities!

Through our Elephant monitoring program in collaboration with ICCN rangers in Kabaraza station, we have been able to protect three different herds of elephants.

Through daily monitoring  of elephants, rangers are able to monitor and locate elephants for their protection from poaching.

On 29th, I visited the forest and met up with more than 50 elephants. I was surprised that elephants sighted us before we could and we were scared. As we were moving making some noises, the elephants were scared and took off. I was told by rangers: “they must be around our camp by now as they feel safe around there”. Fifteen minutes later, we were at road (barrier) and met with more than fifty elephants in three different groups.

It is unbelievable that, although elephants have been poached for the last decade in Virunga,  you can get closer to this herd of elephants thanks to the devotion of rangers.

There is need to continue supporting this activity as we hope this herd can restore elephant population in Virunga Park. In 2008, we estimated more than 280 individuals in three different groups.

Field gears and ranger rations are needed by ranger and further support for monitoring.

Thanks to those who are supporting my work in Virunga.

The Eastern DRC has been under fire and armed conflict since 90s. The fauna and flora of Virunga National Park are intensely impacted because armed groups target rangers and local communities work for armed groups to use illegally resources. In some areas, local communities are allowed to extract resources (fishing villages) but they don’t comply with regulations.

This creates conflict between park staff and communities over resources. More armed conflicts weaken law enforcement.Through a conflict resolution process, a participatory framework was developed, agreed and implemented in Nyakakoma (one of the three fishing villages in Virunga Park) to reduce illegal fishing. All stakeholders (park managers, fisheries and civil society, army and police) were involved and the decrease of illegal fishing was about 50%.

In October 08; with the clash of the war between rebels and legal army, it was impossible to enforce anything as armed people relied on fishing to survive. We kept contact with stakeholders and make sure that the situation is known and monitored.

After five months, with political negotiations, stakeholders wished to restart the process and implement the framework. The success of any conflict resolution project in conservation relies on collaboration between stakeholders which improves relationship and communication among them and built trust. But to get to that level; there is need of commitment and willingness from conservation organizations, support and regular contact with stakeholders and monitoring of the situation. Your support to this blog will strengthen the ongoing conflict and community activities!

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.

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.

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.

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!

Virunga National Park is one of the most famous and rich parks in Africa when you look at its biodiversity. It’s inhabitants are 196 species of large mammals and some of them are only found the Central Albertine Rift (where Virunga is part of the region), 706 species of birds and 106 reptiles, etc.

As part of the region, Virunga NP which is located in the Eastern part of the DRC neighbors mainly five (5) national parks; Mgahinga National Park, Semuliki and Rwenzori in Uganda and the Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda.

Because of its continuous nature, it’s absolutely important that managers open their doors to their neighbors in order to work hand in hand to protect this biodiversity which is shared between countries.

The trans-boundary mechanism is a process where protected area authorities agree to work together to tackle regional-conservation related problems. E.g.: By law, rangers from one country are not allowed to cross the border with guns while the wildlife under their control is moving freely! Then poachers as smugglers were using different routes to cross from one side to another knowing that rangers could not break the law. They could be living in Uganda and poach in DRC and vice versa.

Managers have to work together not to minimize or break the law but to develop strategies which are compatible with the law. Managers have agreed to carry on coordinated patrols where rangers from one side are patrolling on their side at the same time and place the other side is doing the same.

To enable this work on going, there is need of field equipment such as tents, raincoats, GPS units, batteries, etc. and ranger rations to enable them to cover long distances where they spend 3 to 5 days.

Coordinated patrols, as field surveillance can not perform all the work needed to reduce illegal activities thus there is need of information gathering and sharing between managers. Most of the wildlife products are trafficked under panya panya roads (smuggling ways) from one country to another.

Confiscated Items Under Intelligence

The smugglers are not crossing boarders and they fear security and custom services as they know most of these products are not allowed for sale or there are several requirements to fulfill and they may not manage.

Managers have created intelligence networks from the surrounding villages up to the regional wardens’ forum and institutions to collect and use information gathered by local informers. In order to get this activity ongoing there is need of more supports to local informers and wardens by providing them communication equipments such as telephone and airtime.

Conservation is a worldwide interest as it contributes to the life of the world. Then it becomes difficult to handle conservation related activities without involving other stakeholders who are important in the whole process: custom, security services, police, army and magistrate are key stakeholders in the trans-boundary work.

It has been a success having these stakeholders in different forums where they learn about conservation, value and importance of the central Albertine rift region. There is a confident environment which has been established between conservation actors and law enforcement services. This cooperation needs to be strengthened if we want this most important part of world to survive: We have Gorillas, Elephants, Hippopotamus, etc.

The trans-boundary natural resource management has moved from the field level (protected area managers) to the Countries authorities (Heads of conservation institutions and Ministers) to the top level (presidential level – Uganda and DRC).