Gorillas Threatened in Africa's War-Torn Heart
8/19/99
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Title: Gorillas Threatened in Africa's War-Torn Heart
Source: Reuters Limited
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: August 19, 1999
Byline: Todd Pitman
SABINYO VOLCANO, Rwanda (Reuters) - On the lush emerald slopes of
northern Rwanda's mighty Sabinyo volcano, a family of 10 mountain
gorillas -- some of only a few hundred left on Earth - relax in the
mist under a light rain.
While two immense silver-backs forage for leaves and bamboo shoots,
playful infants tumble in foliage and gaze curiously at a handful of
tourists and park rangers a few yards away.
Higher up the slope, 10 Rwandan soldiers with radios, rifles and
rocket-propelled grenade launchers survey the scene and the vast
expanse of terraced hills and bamboo forests.
Closed two years ago because of a low-level civil war, Volcanoes
National Park in the tiny Central African nation of Rwanda reopened
to visitors last month. Park officials say around 300 mountain
gorillas -- half the world's remaining population -- live a
precarious existence in forests that stretch across the chain of
extinct volcanoes straddling Rwanda's northern borders with Uganda
and the Congo.
Pushed steadily further up the slopes by an ever-expanding human
population below, the gorillas' habitat has been threatened by
villagers and refugees in need of land and firewood as well as
poachers and armed conflicts that have plagued Africa's Great Lakes
region for decades.
Despite the dangers that surround them -- animal snares, land mines
and nervous gun-toting rebels to name a few -- Rwanda's gorillas have
fared relatively well. ``In the last few years we've had no losses
among our gorilla population,'' park conservationist Justin
Rurangirwa told Reuters while negotiating his way through a series of
bamboo tunnels at Sabinyo's base. ``On the contrary, we've recorded
five births recently and the numbers are going up.''
IN CONGO, GORILLA POPULATIONS DECIMATED
But if the situation in Rwanda has improved, it stands in stark
contrast to eastern Congo's Kahuzi-Biega National Park, home of a
nearly identical subspecies that comprise the tallest apes on the
planet.
Although eastern lowland gorillas are more abundant than their
Rwandan cousins -- they number between 2,500 to 5,000 -- they are
dying out much faster. From an original population of around 250
living in the highlands of Kahuzi-Biega, 94 gorillas have been
poached since 1996, 20 of them since April alone.
``We're trying to rehabituate the gorillas to the presence of humans
but it's not easy,'' park director Germain Mankoto said in the dense
equatorial rain forest. ``Now that they have been hunted by armed
groups they have no more trust in man.''
He said three of the five groups that were used to tourists had been
completely wiped out. A timid young male who lost a hand in a snare
meant for antelopes illustrates the gravity of the problem: it is one
of only five surviving members of a troop that originally numbered
19.
Authorities say they are doing what they can to stop poaching -- 14
people have been arrested in recent weeks -- but bringing a halt to
the killings is difficult.
VILLAGERS, PYGMIES HUNT FOR FOOD
Pygmies in the forests once hunted freely in eastern Congo, but when
Kahuzi-Biega became a national park in 1970 they were forced into
nearby villages with no land and no compensation. Many retain a deep
knowledge of the park and make a living not only as hunters but as
trackers for rangers or poachers.
Lubanga Bulabi, a 50-year-old Pygmy living on the outskirts of
Kahuzi-Beiga, offered a typical excuse when he was arrested while
hunting in the park last month. ``I went to lay snares for antelopes
and monkeys and to look for some honey,'' he said. ``I went into the
forest because I was hungry.''
Evidence of the destruction is abundant: near the park's entrance
lies a collection of animal skins, elephant bones, gorilla skulls and
poachers' tools, including snares, knives and spears.
As in Rwanda, the flora and fauna of Kahuzi-Biega is under immense
pressure from the people living around it, most of whom struggle to
make a living and have little choice but to hunt animals for food.
``Villagers living around the park kill gorillas, elephants and
other wildlife for meat because inside of the villages they don't
have enough to eat,'' said John Kahekwa, a guide who has tracked the
apes since 1983.
The dense forests ofthese remote game parks provides ideal bases for
rebels and guerrillas to operate from.
In Rwanda, the army has succeeded in clearing most insurgents out of
the volcanoes, pushing them deep inside jungles across the border in
the Congo. But Kahuzi-Biega, which has been closed to tourists since
a rebellion in eastern Congo in 1998, has been much harder for
authorities to control.
Ninety percent of the park is a no man's land occupied by Rwandan
militiamen and the Mai Mai, traditional warriors who believe magic
water can protect them from bullets. Villagers around the park have
been terrorized by roaming bands of militia who carry out frequent
attacks to steal food, utensils, clothes and cattle before fleeing
back into the bush.
Park rangers, too, have been hard hit. Paid $20 a month by a German
aid agency, they say militiamen brandishing machetes, spears and
automatic weapons have stolen their uniforms, burned down their
homes, and occupied park stations.
``Nobody can have tourism in the middle of a war, but when security
returns we hope the tourists will be back,'' Mankoto said.