ZAIRE-ENVIRONMENT: Peacekeepers May Protect Gorillas

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Dec 6 1996 (IPS) - The arrival of the Canadian-led multinational force in Central Africa will provide a safe haven not only for the stranded Rwandese refugees, but also for the last remaining populations of mountain gorillas.

“We can’t go into the park to see the animals because of the fighting in the area,” said Dr Annette Lanjouw of the Nairobi- based International Gorilla Conservation Programme (IGCP).

She told IPS on Friday that her organisation was looking forward to the arrival of the multinational force, because “… their presence may provide security and protection to the gorillas,” said Lanjouw.

The commander of the multinational force, Lieutenant General Maurice Baril of Canada has set up his headquarters in neighbouring Uganda from where he will co-ordinate aid to the refugees.

Baril told the press on Tuesday that the multinational force will increase to 460 in the next 10 days, in addition to the 300 US troops who are operating separately from Entebbe in Uganda.

Although Rwanda, which is opposed to the international force, reports that some 610,000 Hutu refugees who fled the country in 1994 have returned home, aid workers in the region estimate that some 300,000 refugees are still in Zaire.

Those who remain, aid workers said, are cut off from all humanitarian assistance and urgently need the presence of the proposed intervention force.

“The fact that some of these people have left is good news for the gorillas,” said Lanjouw. “It means that the refugees will not now be crossing into the parks every day to collect fuel and bushmeat.”

Environmentalists are concerned that the presence in the region of the defeated former Rwandan army and its ally, the Hutu Interahamwe militia, could spell a disaster for the gorillas.

These soldiers fled to Zaire in 1994 with all their weapons. According to IGCP, immediately a year later in 1995, after a 10- year respite, eight gorillas were killed in Zaire and Uganda.

The gorillas, numbering some 620, are concentrated in three neighbouring countries: Rwanda, Zaire and Uganda.

A population of about 320 gorillas ranges over the Virunga mountains, which straddle the borders of all three countries. The other population of 300 gorillas lives 25 kilometres north in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park of south-western Uganda.

In 1994, during the ethnic conflict in Rwanda, about 850,000 refugees fled Rwanda and were accommodated in camps along the edge of the Parc National des Virunga (PNVi), in Zaire.

As a consequence of their settlement in the area, half of the world’s gorilla population is currently severely threatened, due to habitat destruction, poaching, mines, and the possible spread of human diseases.

It is not only the gorillas which are threatened.

The settlement of Sudanese refugees in Zaire’s Garamba National Park, a Unesco World Heritage Site of 4,900 sq kms, threatens the last known wild population of some 30 white northern rhino. The park is also home to Zaire’s densest elephant population (11,000) and its only herds of giraffe.

“The park has faced increasing pressure from poaching, as the effects of the 12-year civil war in neighbouring southern Sudan spill over into Zaire, and the Zairean economy continues to deteriorate,” said Dr Jean-Pierre d’Haurt, regional representative of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) for eastern Africa.

With an estimated 80,000 refugees settled around the park in the three reserves of Mondo Misa, Gangala na Bodio and Azande, arms are easily available with the result that both local people and Sudanese refugees are poaching wildlife for ‘bushmeat’ for sale in the local market.

“Despite the local poaching activities, the greatest threat is from across the border where rebel armies need food. Men armed with automatic weapons, hand grenades and equipment that attest to their origin are systematically poaching within the park,” d’Huart said in a recent statement.

According to the WWF, buffaloes, whose numbers have dropped from about 53,000 in 1976 to 25,000 in 1995, are the main target for food. But elephants are also being shot for ivory and in January, tusks from 26 elephants were recovered in the park.

Also, for the first time in 12 years, two of the remaining white rhinos were killed this year. The poachers hacked off the horns of the two animals which in Middle Eastern markets fetch prices of up to 1,200 u.s. dollars a kilogramme.

To avoid such incidents in future, the ICGP which was launched in 1991 as a joint initiative between three leading environmental groups in the region, is developing regional collaboration between the protected areas’ authorities in the three countries, in order to expand the coordinated action for gorilla and afromontane forest conservation.

It is also striving to ensure the survival and long term conservation of mountain gorillas and afromontane and medium altitude forests habitats in Rwanda, Uganda and Zaire.

“There are only 620 mountain gorillas left in the world. There is none in captivity,” said Lanjouw.

The most hopeful sign of recovery for the conservation officials was the birth of seven baby mountain gorillas this year in Rwanda.

IGCP officials registered the birth of the animals at Rwanda’s Volcano National Park, bordering on Zaire’s Parc National des Virunga.