Rare gorillas thrive amid the Congo chaos
Rangers caring for some of the world’s last surviving mountain gorillas in the middle of war-torn Congo have been allowed back into their habitat.
The animals live in Virunga National Park, in the centre of rebel-held territory.
A breakthrough deal between the insurgents and President Joseph Kabila’s government has paved the way for staff who fled the fighting to return for the first time in 15 months.
Rangers and scientists from the Congolese Wildlife Authority this week entered the apes’ habitat for the first time since fleeing last year. They found one gorilla family and began a month-long census that will give the world its first comprehensive glimpse at the status and health of the highly endangered animals since the area fell to rebels.
“We are extremely pleased that all sides in this conflict accept the importance of protecting Virunga’s gorilla sector,” said Emmanuel de Merode, the park’s director.
“The survey will give us an accurate assessment of Congo’s mountain gorillas and how they have been affected by the war.”
Congo has risen to prominence because of fighting that exploded in August between government forces and Laurent Nkunda’s rebels, unleashing a humanitarian catastrophe that forced more than 250,000 people from their homes.
Ironically, the latest clashes may have been a good thing for the gorillas. Previously, the front line had run right through the middle of the apes’ habitat. But last month, rebels pushed it dozens of miles away, essentially making the area safer for the animals.
Over the last year, government forces had repeatedly set up mortars and multiple rocket launchers on a main road – now controlled by rebels – that cut through the park, firing them toward rebel positions in the hills.
“They were firing bombs into the park, destroying the forest and the gorillas’ natural habitat,” said a rebel spokesman.
Only about 700 mountain gorillas are left in the world, an estimated 190 of them in Congo around the Mikeno volcano.
Over the past year, conservationists and park authorities have feared for the animals’ safety, saying nobody knew their fate. But the handful of rangers who stayed behind told a different story.
“It’s a myth that nobody knew what was happening to them,” said Benjamin Nsana, a 40-year-old park guide in the rebel zone who has worked with the gorillas for 15 years. “We were here all along. We’ve been sending rangers out every single day” to track seven gorilla families that had grown accustomed to human contact.
Mr Nsana said no gorillas had died over the last year – from poaching, disease, crossfire or anything else. The area was safe, he said, because rebels patrolled the park’s outskirts so thoroughly. In fact, he said, six babies have been born.
The rangers who remained behind say they did so because they were genuinely concerned about the apes’ fate and have been misidentified as rebels or “rebel rangers” by park staff who fled.
Politics, though, undoubtedly played a role. Most of the “renegade” rangers are sympathetic to the rebels and many are Tutsis like Nkunda, the rebel leader. Many of the more than 120 who fled did so either because they feared insecurity or because they opposed the rebels.
In the months before insurgents first seized the area in 2007, 10 mountain gorillas were killed by unidentified attackers believed to be involved in an illegal multi-million dollar charcoal trade. Five were shot to death in a single massacre and one was eaten. It was the apes’ bloodiest year since late American researcher Diane Fossey began working in Congo in the mid-1960s.
