I'm not in exile anymore, but I'm not in Canaan either. We've moved past the election period and seemingly nothing has changed except the creation of more uncertainty. The legitimacy of the current regime is in serious question after seriously flawed presidential and legislative elections. Nobody quite knows where to go from here...political parties are busy molding their own versions of truth and clamoring for the rest of the power.
Meanwhile, conservation will continue to be extremely difficult in this political environment. The vast majority of Congolese depend directly on natural resources (what they can hunt, grow, or gather) and are living in abject poverty. Therefore, poaching and mining in protected areas will continue at a high tenor, because the justice system does not function. Poachers spend 3 days in prison, pay off the prison-guards and are back in the forest causing chaos for elephants, as well as native pygmy populations. The pygmies are greatly affected by poaching, as they're either obliged to guide the poachers or they're threatened by them. So one can sometimes ascertain the safety of the forest by which/how many pygmies are living along the road. Conservation faces an uphill battle - in reducing poaching and destruction of ecosystems and species pyramids. Unless things change, it will continue the overexploitation that has been seen in many previous civilizations, but somehow, very rarely in Africa. This reminds me of how few American bison were left before American settlers realized they had to stop and put some controls on their hunting.
Persistent insecurity will not favor the growth of the tourism sector anytime soon, with Virunga NP and Kahuzi-Biega National Parks being the only accessible options in DRC. No matter how you cut it, there is only a very small number of intrepids who are going to take the risk and hassle of coming to DRC. But they should! Its an interesting place, very beautiful, and yet, troubled.
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