Kabila's Congo Battles Poachers of White Rhino
2/22/98
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Title: Kabila's Congo Battles Poachers of White Rhino
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyrighted, contact source for reprint permissions
Date: 2/22/98
KINSHASA, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Armed rangers are to be sent to the
Democratic Republic of the Congo's national parks to protect white rhinos
and other rare animals from poachers, the environment minister said on
Sunday.
Environment and Tourism Minister Eddie Angulu said the government was
increasingly worried over the world's last wild population of white
rhinoceros, on the brink of extinction in Garamba National Park in the
northeast of the vast Central African country.
``In the short term we've decided to solve security problems in national
parks by sending armed rangers there. The government has taken strict
measures to protect the parks. Our arch foe is poaching,'' Angulu told
Reuters in an interview.
Garamba park is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Over the past 30 years, the number of white rhinoceros in the former Zaire
has been reduced to about 30 from 1,400. Angulu described the situation as
tragic.
``We also have to do our utmost to protect endangered species other than
white rhinoceros, species such as okapis and pygmy chimpanzees which are
found nowhere else in the world but in this country,'' he said.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo contains more than half of Africa's
tropical forest and, after Brazil, is the country with the largest surface
of tropical forest in the world.
Angulu, who accused former allies of the late president Mobutu Sese Seko
of smuggling out okapis and other unique animal and plant species, said
many conservation organisations were eager to help the Kinshasa government
with nature preservation.
A delegation of the Swiss-based World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) visited
the capital last week.
A government environment expert described the visit by WWF director
general Claude Martin as a turning point.
Martin met Congo's President Laurent Kabila who, WWF said later in a
statement, was committed to establishing a genuine conservation agenda in
the country.