Conserve Virunga

Category: Poaching, Wildlife | Date: May 26 2008 | By: conservevirunga

Virunga National Park as first National Park in Africa is facing several threats despite the efforts from rangers and conservationist to protect its resources.

One of its resources is African elephant (Loxodonta africana) inhabiting different ecosystems of the park from the forested areas to the savanna areas.

Elephants in Virunga have been killed in Virunga for the trophy. Due to the occupancy of the park by armed groups, elephants have moved to areas closed to ranger posts with limited movement. Once they want to move, they are killed and forced to stay in limited area.

In order to protect them form this daily threats, rangers have been trying to plan for daily patrols and observations. Three groups of rangers have been monitoring about 300 elephants in Kabaraza ranger station with limited food ration and basic field equipment.

Any help for these elephants is an input to Virunga conservation

Thanks to Antonio C., Nancy A. and Robert J.G. for their support to our work

Technorati : Elephant, Virunga, conservation, poaching

4 responses so far

Category: Hunting, Partnerships, Poaching, Virunga National Park | Date: May 13 2008 | By: conservevirunga

There is need of working together to save the threatened species

The eastern DRC is facing armed crisis for about three decades now. Protected areas are among the vulnerable areas as they are used by armed groups as their shelter and source of food and income.

Virunga National park is suffering from that as a consequence of armed conflicts. The different armed groups in Eastern DRC have found their refuge into the Park and depend on its resources.

Main damage concerns:

• Poaching and massive killing of fauna:

­ this April; about 14 elephants have been killed by armed groups

­ in 2006, about 400 hippos have been killed by armed groups

­ number of Kobs are killed daily

­ charcoal making and illegal timber trade

• restricting access to park surveillance:

­ some of the armed groups have created some networks to facilitate illegal fishing in the Lake

­ they don’t allow rangers and conservation actors to access the area

­ they are allowing cultivation into the protected area

­ there are some gunshots exchange between rangers and armed groups

• illegal wildlife trafficking

In order to get the issue solved or reduced, there have been several initiatives at political and military levels to try some solutions:

­ Involve the army to support rangers and organize joint patrols in different areas

­ Involve different stakeholders from various areas to help conservation dedicated organizations to protect the park

­ Create some local networks to gather information about the different areas occupied by armed groups

­ Support park rangers in their daily patrols and provide them field equipments

All these activities are done and need to be done at daily basis. Due to the exceptional situation in DRC, there are daily cases that need support to avoid any political involvement in some of the park issues.

By Helping Virunga, you help to protect threatened species.

Thanks to Robert J. and Nacy A. for your support

Technorati : Democratic Republic of Congo, Patrols, Poaching, Virunga Nationl Park, wildlife trafficing

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Category: Communities, Parks | Date: May 07 2008 | By: admin

Virunga National park located in Eastern DRC is among the richest protected area in terms of animals and plants. Some of these species cannot be found every where apart from the Virunga surrounding regions (e.g. Gorillas).
Covering about 8,000sqkm, Virunga Park is surrounded by a populated region which might be among the highest in DRC – up to 350 habitant/km². In these different areas, natural resources are the most used as about 80% of rural areas in DRC depend on agriculture and use firewood as source of energy.
In order to get firewood, local communities are obliged to get into the park –in most of the surrounding areas – and get some trees cut down for survival purposes. Besides firewood, charcoal is also the main forest killer in the area as the Park is surrounded by 3 big towns (Goma, Butembo and Beni) and others cities (Kiwanja, Rutshuru, Kasindi, etc.) where charcoal is the most used in different households for cooking.
In other areas where there are still some patches of forest, people are cutting down forests for timber, charcoal and firewood.

Picture 1 – How do we carry firewood?

Surrounding communities as future threats to protected forests
Protecting Parks and forests is seen as a management purpose than a common benefit in Africa and especially in DRC.
The forest on community lands is reducing every day and year leaving behind the protected areas as lonely and isolated forested areas.
Even if the forest on community lands is finished, local communities and surrounding towns’ population will still need charcoal, firewood and timber and the only place to get these will be into the protected areas. That’s the future threat towards natural resource exploitation in the Virunga region.
And this is more serious when you consider the birth rates of the areas and their economic status!
More threats towards conservationist than how it is now!

Picture 2 – Deforested areas

Actions to be taken for both sides
In order to get this threat reduced, there is need of working on both sides – developing incentives in the community areas and actions for resources sharing with neighbouring communities on the community side and protection of resource with community on the other side.
Among solutions, get networks organized for community and individual plantations for timber products for communities.
To manage to get people committed to such activities, there is need of technical and financial supports.

Picture 3 –Need to work together to stop the deforestation of the park.

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