Sunday, November 2, 2008
Unrest in North Kivu
The offensive by the CNDP (National Congress for Defense of the People - Congolese Tutsis) rebel group was extremely aggressive this week....they seized control of Virunga Park HQ, and Congolese army and UN compounds. They are getting propped up by the Rwandan gov't. The Congolese national army is a big problem. As soon as the CNDP starts firing, they run to the hills, and start looting and hurting the people they're meant to protect. The civilians are at the mercy of the CNDP, who thankfully are not outright attacking them. However, the CNDP are certainly living off what civilians have left behind, and are not overly concerned with protecting them. They are expansionist, and seeking greater control over the North Kivu region. They control most access to Virunga park, and some motivation for this offensive may be plans to control gorilla tourism, charcoal-harvesting, logging, and mining for themselves and Rwanda. Politically, CNDP also wants the DRC gov't to finally move the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide or their progeny to be extracted from the national army and possibly moved back to Rwanda to either stand trial or be reintegrated. This process is tough - after 14 years, its difficult to decide who really should be DDR'd(disarmament-demobilize-reintegration) and sent to Rwanda. This lack of clarity plays into the hands of the CNDP to expand their power. Let's hope some political diplomacy will be able to quickly bring some solution to this - such as pursuing DDR of the Rwandan genocidaires, and offering amnesty and quick integration of the CNDP into the national army. Unless a mandate for international special forces to do battle with the CNDP, it is quite apparent that the CNDP ambitions will not be quelled by the current MONUC mandate to fire only when fired upon, and the undisciplined national army. Thankfully the international community seems to be rapidly pursuant of a solution...lets hope it is rapid enough to save some lives of civilians who are caught up in this mess.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Post-DRC Publicity
Hi, back in the US, I've paid attention to how often DRC is in international news. The best sources of news are MONUC and BBC. Tuesday night, National Geographic Explorer is hosting back to back 1-hr programs focused on different issues in the Congo - and I urge you to watch these informative views of this complicated, fascinating place.
Tuesday, Sept 16 on National Geographic Channel
9 EST - Gorilla Murders - Virunga Natl Park, East DRC
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/explorer/3817/Overview
10 EST - Congo Bush Pilots - have served as the only reliable transport during the last 30 yrs, flying humanitarians, missionaries and businessmen all over the jungle.
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/explorer/3818/Overview
I am so fortunate to have had a great learning opportunity this summer, and am thankful that all travels were safe...planes, cars, motorcycles, border crossings...I am fortunate. People who shouldn't get hurt sometimes do....a 23 yr old professional pilot flew me all the way across DRC on a humanitarian flight 3 weeks before he piloted the same flight and perhaps the same plane crashed. It was carrying a copilot and 15 passengers and bad weather somehow caused it to crash into a mountain. He had amassed an incredible amount of hours on the Beechcraft 1900 and other planes, but something went wrong very quickly between Kisangani and Bukavu. This NGO was the only airline that the USG, UN, and other humanitarians are permitted to fly, and has a perfect flight safety record since its founding in the 1980s. Its a tragedy, as a talented man's life was cut far too short, but he truly lived and served in his given years.
Fortunately, the two other staff members who worked my flight were not on the plane that crashed. Rest in Peace to the pilots and humanitarians who have given their lives in the service of others.
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/explorer/3818/Overview#tab-Photos/0
Tuesday, Sept 16 on National Geographic Channel
9 EST - Gorilla Murders - Virunga Natl Park, East DRC
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/explorer/3817/Overview
10 EST - Congo Bush Pilots - have served as the only reliable transport during the last 30 yrs, flying humanitarians, missionaries and businessmen all over the jungle.
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/explorer/3818/Overview
I am so fortunate to have had a great learning opportunity this summer, and am thankful that all travels were safe...planes, cars, motorcycles, border crossings...I am fortunate. People who shouldn't get hurt sometimes do....a 23 yr old professional pilot flew me all the way across DRC on a humanitarian flight 3 weeks before he piloted the same flight and perhaps the same plane crashed. It was carrying a copilot and 15 passengers and bad weather somehow caused it to crash into a mountain. He had amassed an incredible amount of hours on the Beechcraft 1900 and other planes, but something went wrong very quickly between Kisangani and Bukavu. This NGO was the only airline that the USG, UN, and other humanitarians are permitted to fly, and has a perfect flight safety record since its founding in the 1980s. Its a tragedy, as a talented man's life was cut far too short, but he truly lived and served in his given years.
Fortunately, the two other staff members who worked my flight were not on the plane that crashed. Rest in Peace to the pilots and humanitarians who have given their lives in the service of others.
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/explorer/3818/Overview#tab-Photos/0
Friday, August 22, 2008
The Journey in Ituri (Pt 2.)
After spending our night in Epulu, Jean-Remy and I went to visit the Okapis in the "zoo". For conservation purposes, 14 okapis are kept in large open-air pens, complete with trees and close lines holding the branches they eat. Using their long tongues, okapis prefer to eat upwards like their taller cousins. They are strikingly innocent and beautiful. They freeze still and stare when they hear people. One eventually was brave enough to approach the fence to say hello...tres jolie she was! Their body is similar to a horse, head to a giraffe, and rear-end has the black-white pattern of a zebra.
Later, around the park ranger facilities I heard a loud cry, and saw a baby chimpanzee tethered to a table leg. The story was that its mother was killed and the baby was abandoned and ill, and turned into park authorities. It had to have been the saddest looking little animal I've ever seen. Hopefully they had some way to get it to an orphanage.
After a long journey, we returned to Beni. The town has 4 Monuc bases, but fortunately there is little for these blue helmets(from South Africa, India, and somewhere else) to do! It was fascinating to visit Beni after spending time with missionaries just across the border in Uganda. They've lived in the Bundibugyo district for 15 years or more, only 5 miles from the border, but due to chronic insecurity and uncertainty, have ventured little into the DRC. They receive patients at the health center who speak French or are Congolese residents, or sport the local "French cut" flattop hairstyle, but see very little commerce go thru to Congo - save for a few massive road graters recently. The border has basically been a barrier for the missionaries travels and work. It has has left Bundibugyo underdeveloped - seemingly the end of the road, cut off from the rest of Uganda by the towering Rwenzori mountains, and little thru traffic to DRC. During the upheavals of civil war, many rebels made chaos of this border region. They had myriad questions when we met, about what it looks like, how its different, is it just forest?, etc. It felt no different from Bundibugyo. Mud and wattle houses lined the roads which were crowded with tons of people/livestock/transport, while little children relentlessly called out to me "Mzungu! Mzungu!". Save for the French signs, its the same on the surface. People probably have low standards for local government and services.
The road between Bundibugyo and Beni was improved by the EU in 2005. The guys watching the gate on the road told me it was easy to pass thru to Uganda - 72 kilometers to the border, through the primeval forest of Virungas National Park. Unfortunately I was unable to take this fascinating route this time, but hopefully others will now! Some of the missionaries have longed to pass into Congo to try to spot an okapi, so with the relative stability of this micro-region, they will be enabled to fulfill those desires.
Later, around the park ranger facilities I heard a loud cry, and saw a baby chimpanzee tethered to a table leg. The story was that its mother was killed and the baby was abandoned and ill, and turned into park authorities. It had to have been the saddest looking little animal I've ever seen. Hopefully they had some way to get it to an orphanage.
After a long journey, we returned to Beni. The town has 4 Monuc bases, but fortunately there is little for these blue helmets(from South Africa, India, and somewhere else) to do! It was fascinating to visit Beni after spending time with missionaries just across the border in Uganda. They've lived in the Bundibugyo district for 15 years or more, only 5 miles from the border, but due to chronic insecurity and uncertainty, have ventured little into the DRC. They receive patients at the health center who speak French or are Congolese residents, or sport the local "French cut" flattop hairstyle, but see very little commerce go thru to Congo - save for a few massive road graters recently. The border has basically been a barrier for the missionaries travels and work. It has has left Bundibugyo underdeveloped - seemingly the end of the road, cut off from the rest of Uganda by the towering Rwenzori mountains, and little thru traffic to DRC. During the upheavals of civil war, many rebels made chaos of this border region. They had myriad questions when we met, about what it looks like, how its different, is it just forest?, etc. It felt no different from Bundibugyo. Mud and wattle houses lined the roads which were crowded with tons of people/livestock/transport, while little children relentlessly called out to me "Mzungu! Mzungu!". Save for the French signs, its the same on the surface. People probably have low standards for local government and services.
The road between Bundibugyo and Beni was improved by the EU in 2005. The guys watching the gate on the road told me it was easy to pass thru to Uganda - 72 kilometers to the border, through the primeval forest of Virungas National Park. Unfortunately I was unable to take this fascinating route this time, but hopefully others will now! Some of the missionaries have longed to pass into Congo to try to spot an okapi, so with the relative stability of this micro-region, they will be enabled to fulfill those desires.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Voila! Bienvenu!!!
Bonjour du monde! I am back in the USA already- enjoying summertime! This is after a wild week of travel to 3 countries and transportation methods of varying comfort levels. AirServ flew via a few other outposts which gave me some great aerial views of the primeval forest landscape of central DRC. Finally we arrived in Goma, the city bounded by all of the following: volcano, beautiful lake, Rwanda; and refugees and rebels lingering not far away. Its a beautiful setting...with any sense of stability would no doubt attract lots of tourists.
After asking around about tourism in the area, I was steered to head to Rwanda. As an American, no visa is required, and the place is anglophone friendly. Gustave, the chauffeur, drove with me to Volcans National Park thru the terraced Milles Collines (thousands hills) and tea fields of the countryside. Beautiful! That park is the one to visit for tracking mountain gorillas high up on the slopes of green volcanoes. However, I neither had $500 or the time, but got to imagine how cool it would be to sit close to these humble beasts for an hour.
In Beni, a smallish city north of Goma in north Kivu, I met with Wildlife Conservation Society who drove with me the 300 km to Epulu in the middle of the Okapi Faunal Reserve - a world heritage site and famous protected area in the Ituri Rainforest. The drive was beautiful...the roads surprisingly good and crowded with smart looking people and livestock. We killed or straddled no less than 5 chickens and goats as we barrelled along. The ride also included a ferry ride across the Ituri River, whose bridge had collapsed a year ago under the weight of an overloaded truck. This has really disrupted business for those who transit thru, but has spawned some local economic activity - vegetable/fruit markets, boat builders, supervisors and ferry pullers(?!) - definition: those on the boat who hold and pull the rope that spans both shores hand over hand.
Jean-Remy, the WCS officer, and I hiked to a forest plot of 10 hectares on which every tree has been mapped and catalogued - the process takes a year, and has been done 3 times in to monitor 5 year intervals of forest dynamics. A few BaMbuti pygmies are caretakers for the plot's camp, and help a Congolese PhD student researching Lianas...its fun to look at these vines and to try to figure out where they start and end. They know the forest well...every fruit, tree species, footprint, and disturbance. One of the pygmy guides said something about rain...as I strained my ear, within 10 seconds began to hear the distant sound of rain. Luckily the canopy protected us from feeling anything more than a light mist. We returned to the agriculture by settlements along the road, and after 6 hours in the forest finally saw some monkeys...3 or 4 different kinds. We stayed right next to the Epulu River at the home of American primatologists - After climbing around a tree by the river, Jean-Remy told me about the home-school teacher who was attacked by a nile crocodile there! We closed the night with a Primus and some plastic chairs under the moonlit sky in the tiny village's Okapi-emblazoned bar. What a place! More to come about the journey later....
Well..that is just the first few days...but
After asking around about tourism in the area, I was steered to head to Rwanda. As an American, no visa is required, and the place is anglophone friendly. Gustave, the chauffeur, drove with me to Volcans National Park thru the terraced Milles Collines (thousands hills) and tea fields of the countryside. Beautiful! That park is the one to visit for tracking mountain gorillas high up on the slopes of green volcanoes. However, I neither had $500 or the time, but got to imagine how cool it would be to sit close to these humble beasts for an hour.
In Beni, a smallish city north of Goma in north Kivu, I met with Wildlife Conservation Society who drove with me the 300 km to Epulu in the middle of the Okapi Faunal Reserve - a world heritage site and famous protected area in the Ituri Rainforest. The drive was beautiful...the roads surprisingly good and crowded with smart looking people and livestock. We killed or straddled no less than 5 chickens and goats as we barrelled along. The ride also included a ferry ride across the Ituri River, whose bridge had collapsed a year ago under the weight of an overloaded truck. This has really disrupted business for those who transit thru, but has spawned some local economic activity - vegetable/fruit markets, boat builders, supervisors and ferry pullers(?!) - definition: those on the boat who hold and pull the rope that spans both shores hand over hand.
Jean-Remy, the WCS officer, and I hiked to a forest plot of 10 hectares on which every tree has been mapped and catalogued - the process takes a year, and has been done 3 times in to monitor 5 year intervals of forest dynamics. A few BaMbuti pygmies are caretakers for the plot's camp, and help a Congolese PhD student researching Lianas...its fun to look at these vines and to try to figure out where they start and end. They know the forest well...every fruit, tree species, footprint, and disturbance. One of the pygmy guides said something about rain...as I strained my ear, within 10 seconds began to hear the distant sound of rain. Luckily the canopy protected us from feeling anything more than a light mist. We returned to the agriculture by settlements along the road, and after 6 hours in the forest finally saw some monkeys...3 or 4 different kinds. We stayed right next to the Epulu River at the home of American primatologists - After climbing around a tree by the river, Jean-Remy told me about the home-school teacher who was attacked by a nile crocodile there! We closed the night with a Primus and some plastic chairs under the moonlit sky in the tiny village's Okapi-emblazoned bar. What a place! More to come about the journey later....
Well..that is just the first few days...but
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Into the Bush
I am 10 days from departing Africa, and finally have an exit strategy. It is pretty much the coolest I could have ever hoped for. After 2.5 months of developing a macroview of USG-funded conservation efforts in the Congo Basin, and being lost in the loveable chaos that is Kinshasa….I’ll leave the megacity for the forest to visit on-the ground conservation in Okapi Faunal Reserve, a World Heritage Site in Ituri District, DRC. Okapis, or “forest giraffes” – are odd looking, and have much shorter necks than their savannah relatives an adaptation to foraging in forests. This region has multiple conservation issues – rare endemic species, pressure from hunting, degraded local livelihoods due to human immigration for economic opportunities like gold mining,.
Monday, Aug 11 I depart to Goma, the eastern city on Lake Kivu, which gets partially destroyed every few decades by nearby volcanic eruptions. It is also the de-facto IDP camp of the hot-zone of the various convoluted conflicts. For two nights, I hang out there in transit to Beni, a city one hour north by plane. From Beni, I’ll travel about 300km on improved roads (gravel tracks) with conservationists from WCS through primordial forest to the ranger station in Okapi reserve. A high population of pygmies live and hunt in the park and use inobtrusive methods (hunting duikers with dogs and nets I think), while the “national highway” that bisects the reserve for commerce between Bunia and Kisangani, opens the park to human traffic and increased human migration. The settlers clear thickly forested land for agriculture and hunt with snares and rifles. The soil is quite poor in nutrients and requires frequent rotation and long fallow periods. The human presence in and around the park is factored into management procedures as CARPE and conservationists try to preserve livelihoods of natives and key species.
Nearby is the only legit logging concession in all of eastern DRC, for a company who leases the land and pays taxes. They have problems with immigrants on the fringes of the property cutting timber for themselves. The company has a saw mill which produces value-added timber products for export.
After returning to Beni, I’ll take a taxi thru the safe savannah part of Virungas park north of Lake George to the Uganda border. There I’ll meet great friends for a few days in Queen Elizabeth NP and some wildlife. What an opportunity ya? It has been a heck of an time, learning about this complex place, and learning about USG activities to promote conservation and management of natural resources of the Congo Basin.
Monday, Aug 11 I depart to Goma, the eastern city on Lake Kivu, which gets partially destroyed every few decades by nearby volcanic eruptions. It is also the de-facto IDP camp of the hot-zone of the various convoluted conflicts. For two nights, I hang out there in transit to Beni, a city one hour north by plane. From Beni, I’ll travel about 300km on improved roads (gravel tracks) with conservationists from WCS through primordial forest to the ranger station in Okapi reserve. A high population of pygmies live and hunt in the park and use inobtrusive methods (hunting duikers with dogs and nets I think), while the “national highway” that bisects the reserve for commerce between Bunia and Kisangani, opens the park to human traffic and increased human migration. The settlers clear thickly forested land for agriculture and hunt with snares and rifles. The soil is quite poor in nutrients and requires frequent rotation and long fallow periods. The human presence in and around the park is factored into management procedures as CARPE and conservationists try to preserve livelihoods of natives and key species.
Nearby is the only legit logging concession in all of eastern DRC, for a company who leases the land and pays taxes. They have problems with immigrants on the fringes of the property cutting timber for themselves. The company has a saw mill which produces value-added timber products for export.
After returning to Beni, I’ll take a taxi thru the safe savannah part of Virungas park north of Lake George to the Uganda border. There I’ll meet great friends for a few days in Queen Elizabeth NP and some wildlife. What an opportunity ya? It has been a heck of an time, learning about this complex place, and learning about USG activities to promote conservation and management of natural resources of the Congo Basin.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Longtemps!
Its been some time...2 weeks at a blog. Hectic, logistic, event and effort heavy are the days- CARPE land has had a lot going on. Just this week, a DRC wetland was newly declared the largest Ramsar site in the world - which brings international recognition to the importance of the ecological services supplied to the nation, region, and world by the big swamp between Kinshasa and Kisangani.
Birds migrate here from Siberia during the winter, and it provides natural resources for many people, climate regulation, and habitat to species found nowhere else on earth.
http://www.monuc.org/news.aspx?newsID=17808
Over 1000 miles separate Kisangani and Kinshasa on the Congo River, but the contours have the slope of a platter, braiding the river out to 10 miles wide and saturating much more land. Just below Kinshasa and Brazzaville, the landscape squeezes this huge volume of water creating unnavigable rapids, powerful currents, and deep cuts into the bedrock. In some places the river reaches hundreds of feet deep before it plunges into the ocean where it has carved a massive canyon. Hard to fathom this stuff!
Last weekend, my roommate and I traveled to Pointe Noire in Congo-Brazzaville and are here to tell about it. Dave has lived in Africa for 8 years, in some harder places than our current setup in Kinshasa. Only together would either of us have ventured in the first place. Our destination was Pointe Noire, an oil wealth port on the Atlantic in the Republic of Congo; arguably the most tourist-friendly city in both Congos. On a map, it does not look so far from Kinshasa to Pointe Noire – one might assume it is drivable distance. This is the Congos though, and I’ve learned that logistics rule the day. First, one needs a visa allowing passage into the next country. Divergent colonial (Belgian and Republic of Congo-French), post-colonial trouble (dictatorship in DRC, versus communist ROC, concurrent civil wars ending in the last few years) make these neighbors prone to keep their distance from the other.
Brazzaville and Kinshasa are separated by the mile width of the Congo River…the closest capital cities in the world, hardly twin cities given how difficult it is transit between. All Congolese music is the same, but Kinshasa has way more people, is much more hectic, and has better selection of goods, while Brazzaville is quieter, has wider streets, more heavy artillery pockmarks from recent civil war, and better beer (I favor Ngok to Primus, if not for the flavor then the cool crocodilian logo).
Only with the help of expeditors on both sides could we have made it. They handled forms and visas with anonymous authorities and made sure we found the proper canot rapides at the crowded beaches. Then we caught a Trans Air Congo flight to PN, on an old Malaysian 737. Its unique drag mechanism on the wing had me frantically looking for the inflatable slide upon our landing. Nonetheless...we enjoyed the powerful waves of the Atlantic ocean, and much walking around...something we don't do much in Kinshasa.
I'm getting down to a few weeks of work, before travels to Uganda, and hopefully the tropical jungle too. Travel here is awe-inspiring and exhausting. Once its done you just thank God that you've made it!
Birds migrate here from Siberia during the winter, and it provides natural resources for many people, climate regulation, and habitat to species found nowhere else on earth.
http://www.monuc.org/news.aspx?newsID=17808
Over 1000 miles separate Kisangani and Kinshasa on the Congo River, but the contours have the slope of a platter, braiding the river out to 10 miles wide and saturating much more land. Just below Kinshasa and Brazzaville, the landscape squeezes this huge volume of water creating unnavigable rapids, powerful currents, and deep cuts into the bedrock. In some places the river reaches hundreds of feet deep before it plunges into the ocean where it has carved a massive canyon. Hard to fathom this stuff!
Last weekend, my roommate and I traveled to Pointe Noire in Congo-Brazzaville and are here to tell about it. Dave has lived in Africa for 8 years, in some harder places than our current setup in Kinshasa. Only together would either of us have ventured in the first place. Our destination was Pointe Noire, an oil wealth port on the Atlantic in the Republic of Congo; arguably the most tourist-friendly city in both Congos. On a map, it does not look so far from Kinshasa to Pointe Noire – one might assume it is drivable distance. This is the Congos though, and I’ve learned that logistics rule the day. First, one needs a visa allowing passage into the next country. Divergent colonial (Belgian and Republic of Congo-French), post-colonial trouble (dictatorship in DRC, versus communist ROC, concurrent civil wars ending in the last few years) make these neighbors prone to keep their distance from the other.
Brazzaville and Kinshasa are separated by the mile width of the Congo River…the closest capital cities in the world, hardly twin cities given how difficult it is transit between. All Congolese music is the same, but Kinshasa has way more people, is much more hectic, and has better selection of goods, while Brazzaville is quieter, has wider streets, more heavy artillery pockmarks from recent civil war, and better beer (I favor Ngok to Primus, if not for the flavor then the cool crocodilian logo).
Only with the help of expeditors on both sides could we have made it. They handled forms and visas with anonymous authorities and made sure we found the proper canot rapides at the crowded beaches. Then we caught a Trans Air Congo flight to PN, on an old Malaysian 737. Its unique drag mechanism on the wing had me frantically looking for the inflatable slide upon our landing. Nonetheless...we enjoyed the powerful waves of the Atlantic ocean, and much walking around...something we don't do much in Kinshasa.
I'm getting down to a few weeks of work, before travels to Uganda, and hopefully the tropical jungle too. Travel here is awe-inspiring and exhausting. Once its done you just thank God that you've made it!
Saturday, July 12, 2008
More Virungas Links
Sorry, blogspot's "hyperlink" doesn't work...oh technology!
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/
2008/07/080711-gorilla-murders.html
http://appablog.wordpress.com/2008/07/11/
us-leads-ministerial-conference-on-
transboundary-conservation-with-rwanda-
the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-and-
uganda-of-the-congo-and-uganda/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/
2008/07/080711-gorilla-murders.html
http://appablog.wordpress.com/2008/07/11/
us-leads-ministerial-conference-on-
transboundary-conservation-with-rwanda-
the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-and-
uganda-of-the-congo-and-uganda/
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