An Initiative to Resolve Conflicts between Park and Populace
The implication of local populations in acts of destruction of protected
nature has been due above all to the extensive poverty caused by war,
to the absence of a framework of dialogue between the park and the people,
and to the absence of any sharing of revenues between the park and the
people, as well as to the lack of tangible returns from the park to the
general population. The politics of nature conservation, which has been
a long-term policy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has never
favoured collaboration between the park and the people but has, rather,
engendered mistrust and a tendency to invade the park’s lands, or
poaching. Certain demagogues and warlords have taken advantage of the
chaos created by the incessant wars to insinuate themselves into the trust
of the population and to enrich themselves illegally.
Since the year 2000, the Regional Office of Central Africa (ROCA) of the
International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources
(IUCN) has initiated a biodiversity conservation project for times of
armed disturbances, a project called Peace Parks Project (PPP),
in three countries of the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa - the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi. The overall objective of this
project is to promote the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity
during armed conflicts by setting up a network of protected areas for
peace and contributing towards the improvement of welfare of the affected
populations in the Great Lakes Region. In the execution of the project,
several activities are set in train, and several fundamental initiatives
are promoted and encouraged. The most important of these is the project
of Comité de Dialogue (dialogue committee) between the institution
responsible for conservation in the Congo and the communities. The initiative
for this committee came from the ICCN, a national institution charged
with the administration of the national parks and nature reserves in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo. Its principal partners include the PPP,
the International Gorilla Conservation Programme (IGCP), and the
WWF's Virunga Environmental Program (PEVi).
A dialogue committee is a framework incorporating all the parties involved
in the conservation of a protected area for its common management and
for sustainable community development. The committee is apolitical and
without any financial object. It is composed of 10 elected members, representing
both the ICCN administrators and the traditional authority and civil population.
Given that the Parc National des Virunga includes several human populations
with different traditions, the functioning unit of the dialogue committee
is based at the level of the local community. At each community level,
local sub-committees are established for each major village or cluster
of villages. The coordination of all the dialogue committees of the national
park will be worked via a pilot committee for a period of three years
in an alternating manner. At the moment, the Jomba committee is taking
on this task for the Mikeno Sector.
The Mikeno Sector comprises five communities: Jomba, Bweza, Gisigari,
Rugari and Kibumba. At present, only the Jomba committee exists; there
is now a need to put in place three more committees, one for Gisigari
and Bweza, one for Kibumba, and one for Rugari.
The mission of the dialogue committees is to bring the local population
and ICCN to manage the natural resources of the park and to reconcile
activities for the maintenance of the park’s biodiversity with those
of other development programs. The dialogue committees therefore have
two objectives: first, to establish a space for a frank dialogue between
park and population; and secondly, to contribute to the promotion of lasting
development aimed at the maintenance of biodiversity in and around the
park.
The activities of the committees consist of the identification of any
problems which could cause conflict between the park and the population,
the search for solutions for any problems which are identified, following
up the proposed resolutions to the problems, wide dissemination of the
resolutions to interested parties, improvement of the level of understanding
of the importance of conservation or of the existence of the park among
the general populace, and helping development activities to take root.
The strategies of the committees are based on regular meetings (once a
month) with extra meetings when necessary, on the dissemination of the
minutes to all those concerned, and on site visits. In their meetings,
the committees find solutions by dialogue, reflection, consultation, planning,
and in rare cases on information sessions with higher levels of the hierarchy.
The PPP has financed an expense account for the committee and the remuneration
of expenses for Jomba, Kibirizi and Sake, and has facilitated the setting
up of the three pilot committees for these three villages. After their
establishment, the PPP, the ICCN and the partners of the ICCN have secured
the make-up of the membership of the pilot committees, and the PPP has
continued to guarantee the framework and the procedure of these committees.
In November 2002, the Berggorilla & Regenwald Direkthilfe and
Basel Zoo (Switzerland) supported
the Jomba committee by supplying office equipment, field equipment (waterproofs
and boots) and communications equipment, by supporting small projects
(potato seeds and small loans among members) and by motivating them to
visit the fields. This support is continuing in the form of office furniture.
The pilot dialogue committee at Jomba has set up two subcommittees in
the localities of Mukingo and Gikoro, thus totalling 32 very active members.
There has been at least one session each month to inform and interest
the population in conservation, and on several occasions the authorities
have been invited. Since May 2000, the Bunagana committee with its subcommittees
has succeed-ed in discouraging several times those trafficking in baby
gorillas. They ensure surveillance of fields, together with the guards
of the Chanzu post (Jomba), to repel animals from the park which raid
crops. As revenge, the population of Jomba had dug several ditches to
trap animals from the park that enter their fields to destroy the crops.
Several buffaloes have fallen into these ditches since 1998, when they
were dug. A young elephant died during the course of the year from the
effects of shock from falling in the ditch. The Jomba dialogue committee
has alerted the population to the danger which this represents for the
fauna, particularly the gorillas but equally for the people themselves.
More than 100 ditches have been filled in, thanks above all to funds from
the Basel Zoo and technical support of PPP.
Having established their effectiveness in the management and resolution
of conflicts, the Berggorilla & Regenwald Direkthilfe and the
Basel Zoo have also granted funds to the PPP for the setting up and formation
of committees in the localities of Bweza, Gisigari and Kibumba.
Claude Sikubwabo Kiyengo and Déo Kajuga Binyeri
 |
|
 |
Above: Members of teh Jomba dialogue committee Left: Rabbit breeders who are supported by the dialogue committee |
| Photos: Claude Sikubwabo | |
Déo Kajuga Binyeri has been working for conservation
since a long time. He directed several national park stations, for example
the station Rumangabo. At the moment he is the Provincial Directeur of
the ICCN (Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature)
North Kivu.
Claude Sikubwabo Kiyengo conducted a gorilla
survey in the Maiko National Park from 1989 to 1992, and in 1994 he took
part in the gorilla census in Kahuzi-Biega. After that he worked for the
ICCN in Goma and from 2000 to 2004 for the IUCN program PPP. After
having worked for IUCN to develop programs that will be implemented during
the next years, he joined ICCN again in 2006.