eyelaser

Just up on CNN. This is potentially very bad for the Congo, gorillas and tourism.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa...ark/index.html

Eric

andybiggs

This is horrible. Thanks for sharing, Eric.

Leely2

Terrible news.

Chris_GA_Atl

Having read this story (and dozens just like it over the past several years), I don't see how this is anything other than the same cycle of fighting we have seen over and over again in the eastern DRC. General Nkunda's group has used the Virunga NP as a hiding place dozens of times over the last several years and has been responsible for numerous previous gorilla killings in the park as well. Seems like this recent report is just a repeat of what has been happening all along.
And as bad as it is for gorillas, let's not forget that the conflict is also killing tens of thousands of people every month and displacing many thousands more from their homes on a regular basis. We may view the eastern DRC as a potential tourist destination, but for millions of people who live in that area, it is their home.

Chris

atravelynn

What's different about this is that it is the first time the Virunga park headquarters have been taken over in DRC. New brazenness that pushes the violence up a notch.

Very troubling for people and nature.

PredatorBiologist

There are many who think Rwanda helps fund Nkunda's rebels as they are Totsis and form protection from Hutu forces. As the gorillas are a key cog in Rwanda's economy I would hope they will exert pressure on Nkunda to not harm gorillas. A couple months ago there was an excellent article on all of this in National Geographic and the author interviewed Nkunda inside of the National Park, which he was controlling a large portion of at the time. Nkunda was professing that he would protect the gorillas and in fact was scheming to bring in tourists (intrepid to be sure) to raise revenue by showing the gorillas, not that I put any stock in that man's word but he seems much better served to not harm them.

If I recall correctly the gorillas that were killed most recently and originally blamed on the rebels were actually killed by a park authority who was hoping to keep people away from their lucrative charcoal trade.

It's mind-numbing that 45,000 people a month are dying and more than 5 million in the last decade. I want to throw up everytime I hear a politician mugging for votes claiming they will never let another genocide happen, and while Darfur at least gets some mention I never hear anyone worried about the DRC.

The economic potential to change so many lives is there if peace could be established. Old African hands and biologists a like will tell you the DRC is likely the most diverse and spectacular of all the countries in Africa.