Our National Parks are Vanishing and our Gorillas Threatened by Extinction

The community of nature conservation and environmental protection is mourning. Just a reminder: South Kivu and North Kivu, provinces especially interesting for tourists, have recently lost a considerable number of rare animals that have inestimable value for tourism, economy, science and culture.
The Virunga and Kahuzi-Biega National Parks, national fortune and World Heritage Sites, were the scene of violence and massacres of the biological diversity during the war of liberation, expecially for gorillas, elephants and hippos, but also for other animal and plant species.
In the Kahuzi-Biega National Park:

• The famous gorilla Maheshe, patriarch and leader of a group (15 members) was killed in January 1994 by poachers; they have been identified but were not punished in spite of the evidence.
• The gorilla Mushamuka, also a patriarch and family leader of 8 individuals, was killed in April 1997 by poachers that have not yet been identified.
• Very recently, on 30 October 1997, the gorilla Nindja, leader of a family of 29 members, was killed perfidiously with bullets.

Within 10 months, from October 1996 to July 1997, over 150 elephants were killed in the Kahuzi-Biega Park. Not only these species of wild animals are threatened by shameless poaching; the habitat - the forest which contains that biodiversity - is also in danger, because it is systematically destroyed by tree felling and fires that were set aflame by humans.
Let's not forget, and this has to be emphasized, that tourism in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo depends on the national parks. We call these acts, which are disgraceful as well as reprehensible, sabotage of the economy of South Kivu. Their effect is that our province and our country lose natural riches that are unique in the whole world.

This is a real alarm call, a SOS by Mr. Bakinahe Stanislas, ICCN (Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature) Provincial Director for South Kivu and Maniema, which he directs to everyone (decision-makers, intellectuals, farmers, government officials, military, ...). At the moment, the personnel for surveillance of the parks and nature reserves (rangers) no longer have the working materials at their disposal which would allow them to ensure the protection of our national parks.

If we still do not take our responsibility in the view of nature, how will we answer the questions of future generations?

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