"Gorillas in the Mist" Park Slashed by Squatters

Stefan Lovgren
for National Geographic News

July 12, 2004

In early May thousands of people poured across the border from Rwanda
into Virunga National Park in the neighboring Democratic Republic of
Congo. Almost immediately they started to slash and burn their way
through some of Africa's most pristine rain forest.

The illegal settlers, allegedly paid by Rwandan land speculators, clear-cut the forest and turned it into agricultural land. In less than a month, they destroyed more than 4,000 acres (1,600 hectares) of prime habitat for one of the world's most critically endangered species, the mountain gorilla.

The squatters have been driven out, for now. But conservationists fear their return. In the hinterland of eastern Congo, where tensions between Rwanda and Congo have erupted in sporadic fighting in recent months, lawlessness rules. Deforestation is rampant, as militias and poachers roam virtually unchecked through national parks.

"With the resumption of armed conflict, the last month has been fairly catastrophic for the conservation effort in Congo," said Emmanuel de Merode, coordinator for the European Commission Development Program in Goma in eastern Congo.

Virunga is one of Africa's oldest national parks and was popularized by the movie Gorillas in the Mist. To protect the park, conservationists are now building a wall around a part of the UN World Heritage site to stop settlers from entering with their cattle, and to deter wild animals from leaving.

Simmering War

The Congo is struggling to overcome a five-year civil war that left more than 2.5 million people dead in combat or through disease and malnutrition. Recent clashes between the Congolese Army and dissident troops backed by Rwanda have prompted fears that a one-year-old peace accord may collapse.

For years rebel groups and government troops have used the Congo's natural riches—diamonds, gold, timber, ivory, cobalt, and coltan (a mineral used in computer chips and cell-phone batteries)—to fund their wars.

"The Democratic Republic of Congo has been unstable and war-torn for the last decade, with disastrous consequences for conservation and biodiversity in many parts of the country," said Karen Laurenson with the Frankfurt Zoological Society in Serengeti, Tanzania.

The illegal settlers in Virunga, estimated at 6,000, were seen being trucked in from Rwanda and ordered by Rwandan military commanders to cut down the forest in the Mikeno sector of the park. Cattle were later introduced. Each person was allegedly paid the equivalent of one U.S. dollar a day for the work.

Officially, the operation was a security precaution to prevent infiltrations of militia groups into Rwanda from the Congo. But conservationists maintain the real reason was financial, with powerful Rwandan businessmen selling plots in the park for agricultural use.

In late June the forest clearance was finally halted after conservation groups and Western governments pressured the Rwandan government to intervene. The settlers and the cattle were driven out.

But the damage is already done. An aerial survey on June 12 by the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature showed that 15 square kilometers (5.8 square miles)—or as much as 10 percent of the Mikeno sector of the park—has been destroyed.

Human Encroachment

Virunga National Park straddles the Rwandan and Ugandan border. It was created in 1925, boasts the highest biological diversity in Africa, and was made famous by gorilla expert Dian Fossey. The landscape ranges from volcanoes and Afro-alpine mountains to savanna and lowland rain forest. The park is also home to the world's only golden monkey population.

"Forest destruction and human encroachment [in Virunga] … have profound implications for the future viability of this ecosystem," wrote Klaus Toepfer in a letter to the environment ministers for Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda. Based in Kenya, Toepfer is the executive director of the UN Environment Programme.

The most famous resident of Virunga is the mountain gorilla. More than half of the species' population, estimated at 700 to 750, is found there. The rest live in Rwanda and Uganda.

Mountain gorillas feed on a diet of natural bamboo and alpine forest vegetation. Encroachment into their habitat reduces their access to food, as well as their breeding area.

"Loss of habitat is the worst threat to this species," said Marc Languy, coordinator of World Wildlife Fund's program in the Albertine Rift, where Virunga is located.

Mountain gorillas are considered by many to be a conservation success story. Despite more than ten years of conflict in the region, the gorilla population has increased by 17 percent since 1989. Today gorilla tourism to the region generates two million dollars (U.S.) in annual revenues.

But the conservation has come at a high cost. Ninety-two Congolese park officials have been killed since 1996. At least two rangers have been killed in recent weeks. On the night of June 25 one park station was looted and burned by 300 militias.

During the Mikeno invasion regular monitoring of the gorillas was halted in one part of the park, and rangers lost track of three gorillas from habituated families.

Conservationists now hope that the new wall around part of the park will help rangers monitor any illegal activities. Construction on the 20-kilometer-long (12.4-mile-long) wall, which will be one meter (3.2 feet) high and one meter wide, started on July 6.

Under Attack

Other parks in the region are also coming under attack. Last week in Rwanda poachers reportedly burned a third of the country's largest national park, Akagera. The preserve is home to elephants, giraffes, zebra, and various species of antelope and monkey.

Garamba National Park, in northeastern Congo, has been invaded by Sudanese poachers who have killed several of the two dozen remaining northern white rhinos there.

"The damage is not just in the mountain gorilla sector of Virunga, which receives considerable support and attention from the international community," said de Merode, "but also [in] other neglected parks in Congo, where local wildlife staff are very much alone in their attempt to protect the wildlife."

Militias known as the Mai Mai recently looted and burned the headquarters of Upemba National Park in Congo's southern Katanga province. Five park rangers were killed in their homes during the assault.

"These incidents have happened regularly in all of Congo's national parks since the beginning of the war in 1996," said de Merode. "But the last month has been particularly bad."

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