ZAIRE: Belligerents Urged To Spare Endangered Animals

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Jan 30 1997 (IPS) - An international environmental group has appealed to Zaire’s belligerents to protect endangered animals in the east of the country.

The appeal, contained in a one-page letter, coincided with preparations by Zairean government troops for a major offensive to recapture a swathe of land along the Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda borders.

The parks within that chunk of territory, now in the hands of the rebel Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (ADFL), are home to most of the world’s remaining mountain gorillas, northern white rhinos and okapis.

“We hope that these … areas will be spared from the ongoing conflict,” Claude Martin, director general of the Swiss-based World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), said in the letter.

He warned that Zaire stood to lose much if the animals were to disappear. “The potential for support for these parks and reserves and the associated benefits to the people of Zaire would also disappear,” he said.

Of particular concern to the WWF are the Virunga, Garamba, Maiko, and Kahuzi Biega national parks and the Okapi Fauna Reserve.

The 4,900-sq. km Garamba National Park, declared a World Heritage Site by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), has the last 31 northern white rhinos left in the world. Virunga, Maiko and Kahuzi Biega are famous for their mountain and eastern lowland gorillas.

“These areas represent a unique heritage for the people of Zaire and the world, both now and in the future,” Martin said in the letter, dated Jan. 24.

WWF officials in Kinshasa presented the letter — a copy of which was made available to IPS this week — to the office of President Mobutu Sese Seko in the Zairean capital, according to Jean-Pierre d’Huart, WWF Regional Representative in Kenya.

D’Huart told IPS that copies of the document were also sent to the ministries of defence, environment, and tourism, as well as the office of Prime Minister Kengo wa Dondo and the director of the National Parks of Zaire.

“We have also delivered a copy of the letter to Mr Kabila in Goma,” said d’Huart. “And we have also given a copy of the letter to the governor of North Kivu.”

North Kivu, situated in eastern Zaire, is controlled by the AFDL, led by Laurent-Desire Kabila. Goma, the AFDL’s headquarters and the main town in rebel-held territory, is not far from the cluster of parks scattered around eastern Zaire.

One of the parks, Virunga, began experiencing serious environmental problems in 1994, when about 850,000 refugees from Rwanda were accommodated in camps along its border. Over the past two years the refugees destroyed much of the vegetation on the edge of the reserve and poached some of the animals there.

About 320 of the some 620 mountain gorillas in the world range over the Virunga mountains, which form part of the park and also extend into Rwanda and Uganda. The remaining 300 are in the nearby Bwindi Impenetrable National Park of south-western Uganda.

When, in November last, more than 600,000 refugees returned to Rwanda, Dr Annete Lanjouw of the International Gorilla Conservation Programme (IGCP) told IPS that the IGCP was relieved since “it means that they will not now be crossing into the parks every day to collect fuel and bushmeat.”

Since then, no killing of endangered animals has been recorded by wildlife officials there. However, with the civil war in eastern Zaire, the gorillas could suffer from the destruction of their habitat, poaching, mines, and the possible spread of human disease.

“We haven’t heard any killing of the mountain gorillas during the ongoing fighting,” said d’Huart. “Only we heard incidents of poaching of hippopotamus and buffalo by the Zairean government army for meat.”

The WWF hopes that its pleas will be heeded. “So far we haven’t heard anything from both the Zairean and ADFL authorities yet,” said d’Huart.

The fund is also concerned about the presence of refugees from Sudan in the Garamba National Park, home to Zaire’s largest elephant population (11,000) and its only herds of giraffe.

“This park has faced increasing pressure from poaching, as the effects of the 13-year civil war in neighbouring southern Sudan spill over into Zaire, and the Zairean economy continues to deteriorate,” said d’Haurt.

An estimated 80,000 Sudanese refugees are settled around the park in the three reserves of Mondo Misa, Gangala na Bodio and Azande and some of them are armed. They, as well as locals, have been poaching animals and selling the meat in local markets.