Starved by War, Hungry Congolese Turn to Park Animals for
Survival
8/1/99
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Starved by War, Hungry Congolese Turn to Park Animals for
Survival
Source: The Associated Press
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: August 1, 1999
KAHUZI-BIEGA NATIONAL PARK, Congo the Democratic Republic (AP) --
Lubanga Bulabi and his of 22-year-old son lived on game before their
forest home was turned into a moneymaking gorilla reserve. Now,
hungry Batwa Pygmies of southeastern Congo say they have no choice
but to resume their hunt for lowland gorillas and antelope that live
in the national park.
The two men, barefoot and clothed in rags, were caught last week in
the dense forest of Kahuzi-Biega National Park on suspicion of
poaching gorillas.
Fueled by Congo's second war in three years, illegal hunting has come
close to wiping out the gorillas, forest elephants and antelopes.
Their southeastern Congo jungle habitat, tucked between the steep
mountain peaks of Kahuzi and Biega and the rocky shores of Lake Kivu,
once attracted thousands of tourists each year, including Microsoft
founder Bill Gates.
The 1.5 million-acre (.6-million-hectare) park was closed to visitors
a year ago after Rwandan-backed rebels took up arms against Congolese
President Laurent Kabila.
Since then, park officials say poachers have killed 114 lowland
gorillas, almost all the reserve's 300 forest elephants and untold
numbers of antelope.
"This is a carnage," said park director Norbert Mushenzi. "If it
continues, we may as well close the park."
Like other poachers in the area, Bulabi doesn't think he is doing
anything wrong. The 50-year-old Pygmy trekker is landless, jobless
and must feed his two children and wife.
"I was looking for honey in the forest to eat and setting up animal
traps when they caught me," he said.
In 1970 when the park was created, the government evicted Bulabi
without compensation. Corruption, mismanagement and two wars have
left in the park defenseless from poachers and its infrastructure in
tatters.
In many ways, the state of the park reflects the state of Congo,
Africa's third-largest nation: no money, no jobs, no security. The
result is an animal reserve struggling to pay its guards, and guides
whose guns and uniforms have been stolen by government and rebel
soldiers.
"The poachers are villagers who are living inside the park and hunt
down animals for meat," said John Kahekwa, a ranger who says he
guided Gates to one of six gorilla families in August 1993.
Besides poachers, corrupt officials are said to be raising cattle on
park land, depriving gorillas of precious habitat.
The result is that only two gorilla families are known to remain.
A male whose silverback father was shot by poachers shied away from
visitors on Friday and ran deeper into the forest, trying to hide
among the bamboo.
The other gorilla families cannot be traced and are presumed dead.
Rangers said they occasionally came across a tuft of silver hair or a
bone.
In 1996, the park had 260 gorillas. Since April, 20 gorillas have
been killed for food, Kahekwa said. Before that, the park had lost 94
gorillas, including the famed silverback Mushamuka, who acted in the
1988 movie "Gorillas in the Lowland gorillas are endangered, though
there are still 12,000 in a band that stretches across central
Africa. The western lowland gorillas live in Cameroon, Equatorial
Guinea, Gabon, the Central African Republic and the Republic of
Congo. But it is their eastern cousins in the former Zaire, now the
Democratic Republic of Congo, that are hunted as food.
The economy of the eastern Kivu region has come to a standstill
because of the arrival of refugees from Rwanda following the 1994
genocide and two civil wars.
Former Rwandan Hutu soldiers, allied with pro-government fighters
called Mai-Mai, have raided villages and killed cattle, forcing
residents to hunt game to survive.
"Until there is stability, security and money for funding the park
projects, we will not be able to save what we have left of the
animals in the park," Mushenzi said.
In the meantime, Kahekwa waits for better days -- and maybe even a
return visit from Gates.
"We need visitors. They bring money, and they show to villagers that
they can benefit from the park, too," he said.