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A valued editor and mentor once told me: “Sometimes the quest for the story is the story.“ It was an important admonition. In recent days, at least 3000 Rwandan troops have crossed the border into DRC in a joint mission with the Congolese government against agents responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide. If more fighting breaks out, the consequences for humans and animals will be dire. Local sources on the ground in Virunga Park confirm that Rwandan troops have passed near Rutshuru and Rumangabo, in the heart of Virunga National Park, but so far no fighting has broken out. While in DRC in early January, Australian journalist Helen Thomas and I met with Emmanuel de Merode, the new head of the endangered and embattled Virunga National Park, and discussed the human/wildlife conflict there.
Thomas and I had just left Goma, when an email came in from Merode. He had read our interview with CNDP leader Laurent Nkunda in the Huffington Post and wondered if we could talk. Ordinarily, this kind of request would not seem unusual, but I have been a relentless critic of Merode, his association with gorilla conservationists as former head of Wildlife Direct, and I held some of his associates responsible for my arrest and detention by the Congolese secret police two years prior.
We agreed to a meeting, but only if Thomas could be present. Merode crossed the border into the Rwandan town of Gisenyi and we sat on a hotel veranda for almost two hours. After half hour of wary sparring, it seemed to me at least that we had much more in common than we shared in disagreement. Had we both changed? Perhaps we had both grown weary of the senseless and relentless assaults on both humans and wildlife in the Kivus.
At one time, I had shared Merode’s passionate commitment to the preservation of the mountain gorilla, but my concerns shifted once I visited DRC in 2007 and saw that 1.2 million humans were in as much danger as the gorillas. Western news reports have focused on the gorillas above all human concerns.
What follows is a summary of our recorded conversation and subsequent emails. Some of it is paraphrased.
Criticism on access to Virunga riches:
Due to the ongoing fighting in eastern DRC, massive relocation camps are now located on the perimeter of Virunga Park. People need fuel to cook and keep warm and to date there has been an effort to keep the displaced from Virunga. The UNHCR estimates there are 60,000 people in camps at Kibati, just north of North-Kivu provincial capital of Goma.
After being appointed chief warden in August last year, we removed the charcoal barrier at Kibati. Prices in Goma dropped from 33 to 16 dollars a sack in the weeks that followed as a result of a massive increase in supply from the park. We are still trying to get a solution to the considerable damage that is being inflicted on the park as a result of my decision to abandon the barrier, but please understand that I do not believe that the wildlife should take priority over people’s needs.
You are right in claiming that, by focusing on charcoal, we are neglecting some of the more pressing humanitarian needs. But we have to look ahead. Virunga’s forests cannot last more than five years with the amount of charcoal that is coming out of the park. When the forests are gone, Goma will suffer a massive energy crisis, and that will quickly become a humanitarian catastrophe. Charcoal is incredibly destructive and inefficient. When people cut the tree they only use the branches because they don’t have the tools to cut the trunk and it is a huge amount of waste. What we have been working on was to launch a biomass briquette programme as an alternative to charcoal. The Legacy Foundation in the United States developed the system whereby fuel is created from local products of grass, debris and sawdust. Everyone gets accused of being wrong here. Even you.
