Heavily armed militias shatter the stillness in this central African park. Desperate refugees crowd park boundaries. Charcoal producers strip forests. Then, last summer, someone killed seven of these magnificent creatures in cold blood.
I became encapsulated in National Geographic's July cover story; this was a story with so many layers, so much virulent suffering and struggle, a microcosm of the greater battle between man and man, and man and natural world.
This region of the planet, this godforsaken corner of Africa, has seen so many lives extinguished on its fertile red soils that news of seven more should not have penetrated the yawning gap that lies between the world of the suffering and the world of survival. Except this time, the seven lives that were taken were those of the endangered Mountain Gorilla, 7 of perhaps 700 still left on the planet, left to die at the whim of a cruel fate in the cruelest part of this world. News of these deaths permeated even the insular news outlets of the U.S.; I recall seeing a giant Silverback being carried on a crude stretcher of branches through green fields; I recall being deeply saddened by this sight; the closeness of our evolutionary anatomy struck my heart.
There is so much tribulation, so much pain, so much death here in eastern Congo, that eyes glaze over and even the most compassionate of minds becomes calloused. More have died here than anywhere else since the final days of World War 2; they continue to suffer an almost unimaginable fate, puppets controlled with the crude strings of sadistic marionettes.
The dismantling of the mountain gorilla's habitat for fuel charcoal and the valuable mineral resources that lie beneath the earth is one story not unique to this planet; a story of man's insatiable appetite for everything at the table, an appetite that knows no bounds, an appetite that will only be satiated when there is nothing left to eat. In this part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, corruption is simply a way of life. Congolese National Army soldiers ride out of the jungles on trucks packed with freshly produced charcoal, blowing past roadblocks, into the heart of darkness. Little immediate thought is given to the habitat destruction taking place as a result; the hardwoods being churned into charcoal will provide fuel for a destitute family living in a displaced persons camp for perhaps two months; this is such a cruel trade off; its hard to imagine what is morally right in a situation as depraved as this.
This is a story of rebel armies and ethnic hatred; of mass rape and economic pillaging; and of the unfortunate creatures stuck in the crossfire, who just happen to bear a striking similarity to their close relatives, those other creatures who have wrought so much horror. So simply put by the article's author, Mark Jenkins, "North Kivu is a Hieronymus Bosch painting come alive."
This is also a story of hope; of a brave few who swim against the tide of nepotism and criminally negligent national management; who still bring hope despite so many setbacks. Men like Paulin Ngobobo, a ranger who almost lost his life along with his troop of men, who were massacred at the hands of corrupted rebel armies...
"Paulin, one man, was now going up against a system of corruption that has existed in the Congo for 50 years. Naturally, he was immediately arrested. It is very dangerous to be a principled man in the Congo."
How To Help?
http://gorillafund.org/
