Wildlife is more interesting when people try to look into their eyes. When you try to look into wildlife eyes, you think about their needs in terms of habitat, food, shelter, movement. When people kill wildlife, they don’t look into their eyes; they look on their bodies, shape and trophies, etc.
Virunga NP is facing poaching for both commercial and domestic needs in bushmeat. In order to discourage this process which can lead to species depletion, rangers carry out patrols in the Park with support from NGOs working in Conservation. This action is done also during any monitoring of wildlife in the park.
This has been one of the toughest missions of rangers during these two decades in Virunga Park and ICCN (Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature) has lost over 100 rangers on duty. As a consequence, there are widows and orphans without assistance.
But also, rangers are working under pressure in need of field equipments and shelter. Some of the ranger posts have been rehabilitated with partners’ support; others are still in traditional status and makes rangers vulnerable to any armed attacks as they face it frequently.
Helping rangers, saves the most biodiverse and the oldest Park of Africa!
We are proud of individual donors who have donated to this project and specially Robert J.G.
Donations made here are
Mar 11th Robin L USD 5.75
7 Comments
Wishing you all much success in the coming year. I know you guys work hard to protect Virunga National Park and all of it’s diverse wildlife. You are all my heros and I hope to help you as much as I possibly can, by donating what I can and spreading the word about all of your hard work. Thank you for doing what you do. Lisa
Another lovely post Deo, thank you for reminding us that in the end, it is us humans who are the beasts.
Thank you Lisa for the support. We hope that next year will be better for us with less stresses and better conservation.
For sure, humans are responsible for protecting and destroying as they are seen as the major predator among predators. We hope that through diverse actions targetting stakeholders and a social move they can help to conserve.
Deo, thank you for those beautiful photos. Your sentiments are written like a poet! I will make a donation after the first of the new year[it is my promise and you have my word on that]. Getting back to the photos, one the pictures shows a lion in a tree! Does he think he is a leopard! God bless you, all the other rangers, and all of your families, you are true heroes in my eyes and you have my best wishes for the new year!
Thank a lot Teresa. Tis is a speciality of Lion in Ishasha areas where you get lions climbing on a tree. Others (Rwindi in the same Park) don’t do that. None knows how they adopted that behaviour! Thank you!
Do you know what the punishment for poaching is now?
I love you that you are trying to protect these animals and i would like to help. I am doing all i can to gather fund for this cause
Sorry for a later response. There are different punishment for poachers. Under the Congolese conservation law, poachers are arrested and they can be amended by the park warden after not more than 48 hours in the park (jail) or they can be prosecuted and sent to court thay can be charged either 6 months in jail and/or some money to pay to the park. There are more than ten poachers in the central jail who have to spend six months in jail and pay from 500 to 10,000$ to the park. But also, in some incidences where poachers have guns and they threaten rangers (gun fire exchange) thay can die and sometimes rangers die also (more than 105 rangers have been killed in ten years).
I beleive that you will succeed and we’ll get your support.