Baraza

Category: WildlifeDirect news | Date: Sep 30 2008 | By: baraza

The biodiversity in the Albertine Rift is under greater threat now than ever before due to global economic trends, conflicts and other political and social situations. Over the last ten years we witnessed recognition of this important biodiversity in this region and at the same time, trends across Africa include increasing pressure to justify the existence of protected areas financially, mainly through eco-tourism, thus making financial sustainability key to long term ecological sustainability. Given the inevitable variations in cash flow due to the economic and political environment, alternative sources of funds to tourism must be found to enable parks to survive periods of shortfalls and emergencies.

It has been really tough for WildlifeDirect to cope with the needs and expand and support conservation bloggers due to the inevitable financial crunch. However, During our board meeting yesterday I had the pleasure of announcing that WildlifeDirect has just won a two year grant from the MacArthur Foundation to help us to expand and better support bloggers in a very special part of Africa.
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The Albertine Rift is the western arm of the Great Rift Valley and it passes through eight countries, Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, DR Congo, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia. This is an area of Africa is one of the most important areas biologically due to the species richness, indeed many new species have been discovered in recent years, and it is also home to many endemic species like the mountain gorillas - speices that occur nowhere else on earth.

Through this grant we will be able to expand our blog network into new countries and help African conservationists who are working hard with virtually no funding or recognition. This funding should help to raise awareness and funding  to secure the spectacular heritage of this region.

This exciting project will involve identifying new projects and training new field based bloggers working in various types of projects that secure biodviersity in this ecologically unique region.

Tags: Albertine Rift, MacArthur Grant

7 responses so far

Category: Gorillas | Date: Sep 28 2008 | By: baraza

Several news articles and blogs have noted that the launch of Looking for Miza will help to raise attention  to the crisis facing mountain gorillas in Congo. We are also really pleased that the book will also raise funds. When we started the project to do the book with Craig Hatkoff, we had three important objectives

1. To raise awareness. This book is currently in English and will be translated into a number of languages including native languages in Africa where it will be distributed. The Scholastic Junior corp of journalists from Rwanda will be helping to deliver messages across East and Central Africa and to the rest of the world through the Scholastic website.

2. To help people get involved in Gorilla conservation. We saw how this can work in New York on Friday when children in in the USA and globally were involved in the launch of the book and submitted hundreds of ideas to the website. Scholastic will continue to provide opportunities for involvement through their website.

3. We also aimed to raise funds for Gorilla conservation and already US$ 150,000 has been set aside to support rangers in the Virunga National Park from the Owen and Mzee Foundation. This should help to support many rangers over a one year period.

The situation in eastern Congo seems to be worse than ever and it’s now a year since the rebels have been in control of teh gorilla sector. Miza, and her family are at great risk. According to this article on MSNBC fighting continues near the park as Nkunda tries to extend his area of control. Just last month four people were killed and several injured (18 of them rebels) .  This may be why Emmanuel, Innocent and Diddy were unable to travel to New York to attend the launch of the book “Looking for Miza”.

Given the seriousness of the situation we are interested in your thoughts and ideas on how this children’s book can help to  raise awareness, involvement and funds for gorilla conservation.

Tags: Congo, Gorillas, Looking for Miza, owen and mzee

11 responses so far

Category: Gorillas | Date: Sep 26 2008 | By: baraza

The First Ever Kids Gorilla Summit event attracted huge publicity and started on time despite the driving rain, and over 200 children participated in the First Gorilla Summit.

On stage were Lucy Spelman, Peter Greste, Craig, Isabella and Juliana Hatkoff, Richard Leakey and I. We took questions and showed slides and films to a captivated audience.  Billy Di Michelle from Scholastic was an amazing coordinator and Trevor Nielson was the very able Master of Ceremonies.

I think it was  a huge success because these kids were very focused and submitted hundreds of ideas to help solve the crisis facing mountain gorillas.  At 1 pm the event ended and every child went home with a bag of goodies that included the signed books as well as a T-shirt.

The event ended with huge applause. Each of the six schools also got a massive baby gorilla toy that they will name and film the naming ceremony, and an Act Pact - a massive commitment that they will sign.

This is what I felt like  doing just after the Launch of Miza

Course that isn’t me, but I do feel quite ‘high’. These were school kids in Central Park - they were having such enormous fun it was contagious that we couldn’t help taking photos. I hope they join us in this cause to save Mountain gorillas and make a commitment.

If you couldn’t watch the event, you can still enjoy it and submit your commitment on the Scholastic website here.

We are so proud of the success of the event which would not have been possible with out the support of Scholastic, Turtle Pond, the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project, the Rwanda Film Center, President Clinton, Jack Hannah, Anderson Cooper, ACF (UK) and all the rangers who are out there every day saving gorillas in Uganda, Congo and Rwanda.

Now we need to ensure that these commitments are upheld and the event leads to real actions that make a real difference for mountain gorillas throughout their range. Join us, download the commitment here, sign a commitment, send in your ideas and questions, become part of the solution.

More photos of the event are coming soon!

Tags: Anderson Cooper, Bill Clinton, Craig Hatkoff, Jack Hannah, mountain gorillas, Peter Greste, richard leakey, Scholastic, wildlifedirect

5 responses so far

Category: Gorillas | Date: Sep 26 2008 | By: baraza

Good morning everyone, I’m just leaving for the First ever Kids Gorilla Summit. You can watch the event live and even participate from the Scholastic/Miza site here.

The action packed event starts at 10 am and is going to be So much Fun! Richard Leakey, Dr. Lucy from Gorilla Doctors, Craig, Isabella and Julian Hatkoff as well as a host of other people  will be there.

Please join us with kids from all over USA find solutions to help save the gorillas.

3 responses so far

Category: Forests, Mau Forest Complex, National Parks and protected areas, tourism, wildlife | Date: Sep 24 2008 | By: Maina

The power struggles that have characterized the intended eviction of illegal - and perceived legal - squatters from the Mau Complex in Kenya are now degenerating into some really nasty verbal offensives between politicians. On Tuesday, 23 September the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, the Standard and other media reported that the Mau complex was threatening the unity of the ODM Party. The Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) is Kenya’s Prime Minister’s party and has a majority in parliament.

The Mau, one of Kenya’s most important water catchments has been invaded by up to 15,000 families whose eviction - even with the nationwide acceptance that they have to leave - has proved to be extremely challenging for the government. Some of them do indeed have genuine land title deeds. Notwithstanding how fraudulently they acquired them, these are legal government documents that cannot just be wished away. That is why the squatters have stayed put. They say they will only move out when they are compensated for the land they own inside the Mau. They don’t want money, they want land: alternative land.

Now the urgency of evicting these families is creeping in on every Kenyan, and the politicians know this. Politicians being politicians, they see an opportunity to score some career mileage. They are now using the Mau saga - or more so the poor who were sold the land that should not have been sold in the first place - to muscle up their political ambitions. If the event of this Tuesday are anything to go by, then we are in for a lengthy soap opera with a tragic end. Not the happily ever after kind.

Tuesday’s media reports of the emerging cracks in ODM are based on a chain of events that were set into motion by their leader, Prime Minister Raila Odinga when he announced that the squatters have to leave. The situation got worse when Raila, now increasingly getting frustrated by the politicisation of the Mau debacle publicly threatened to name and shame former Kenya African National Union (KANU) stalwarts who he purports are the main beneficiaries of the irregular allocations of land inside the Mau. Most of the remnants of this once powerful party - especially those who stuck with it towards the end of former President Daniel arap Moi’s regime in the late 1990s are now in ODM and they were not amused by the Prime Minister’s uttering.

KANU ruled this country since independence in 1963 until it was dislodged from power during the 2002 euphoric general elections by the then newly formed National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) party. Towards the end of its authoritarian rule, KANU was blamed for having dragged this country through murky decades of economic plunder and stifled democracy. They are said to have acquired colossal swathes of land and Raila believes that, in the same manner, they own most of the Mau land in question.

The situation is so bad such that the Member of Parliament (MP) for Chepalungu Constituency in the expansive Rift Valley Province (where the Mau is located), Honourable Isaac Ruto, is actively campaigning for a candidate from a rival party to ODM for the comming by-elections that were necessitated by the death of a couple of MPs. Isaac was elected to parliament on an ODM ticket. He accuses the Prime Minister of betraying the people who enabled him get to power. Isaac Ruto’s brother, Hounorable Willam Ruto, is credited for having delivered the Rift Valley voting block that sealed the ODM’s parliamentary majority at the end of the hotly contested 2007 general elections in Kenya. Both were former KANU men.

To say that anyone can fully understand the complicated politics that are eating the Mau would be too ambitious. One columnist in the Standard has tried to explain the problem here. I don’t seek to understand these shenanigans. I seek only to see the squatters relocated away from this vital water tower in the most humane manner. The genuine squatters, especially the poor farmers who were duped into buying the land, should be given land elsewhere and immediate forest restoration should start - today. I wonder what will happen to the traditional hunter gatherer minority - the Ogiek - who’ve lived in that forest for eons.

Without the Mau - for example - the Masai Mara will not be the same. The Mara River will not flow. Maybe the wildebeest will stop their annual migration to the Mara and back to Serengeti in Tanzania. Maybe northern Serengeti will die. Maybe.

Tags: community, Forests, Kenya, Masai Mara, Mau Forest Complex, politics, tourism

One response so far

Category: Gorillas, Looking for Miza | Date: Sep 23 2008 | By: Maina

As Paula wrote in her previous post, they (all the authors, photographers and the publisher) will be launching their book, Looking for Miza: the true story of the gorilla family who rescued one of their own, in New York City. The publisher, Scholastic Corporation, the world’s largest publisher of children books, has been promoting Miza and will be hosting a Kids Gorilla Summit on 26 September 2008. This will be the first kids gorilla summit ever.

Three Rwandan kids dubbed “the first-ever international members of Scholastic Kids Press Corps, Higiro Davis Nkuliye, Georgette Munezero, and Grace Karemera, will also be attending the summit to update the other kids about the state of the gorillas.

Scholastic have been promoting the book through a website themed around Miza. They will be web-casting the Gorilla Summit LIVE and preparations for this are in earnest. Although only a preselected group of kids will be attending the Summit, all can watch the web cast - anywhere in the world. The web cast is scheduled for 10:00am to 11:00am Eastern Daylight Time on September 26. Kids who will not be attending this event can post their questions online and these questions can be answered by the large panel of noted conservationists who are special guests at the summit. If you want your kid to participate just go to the Miza page at Scholastic and learn how they can do that.

This promotion, as Paula said on Baraza, “is part of a campaign that was born out of a commitment to action made at the 2007 Clinton Global Initiative shortly after last summer’s tragic massacre of ten mountain gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Virunga National Park. The campaign includes the publication of Looking for Miza: The True Story of the Mountain Gorilla Family Who Rescued One of Their Own (Scholastic Press), and the creation of a multi-platform and standards-based educational initiative that will teach children, teachers and parents about the gorilla crisis.”

More news are on the way so watch this space…

4 responses so far

Category: WildlifeDirect news | Date: Sep 23 2008 | By: baraza

Greetings friends. In my first 24 hours in New York I met Bill Clinton, a very funny city vagrant, four children from Rwanda and a minister, a Rwandan film maker, and three tiger cubs and their keeper plus golden retriever nanny.

I’ll upload more pictures later but thought I’d leave you with  this photo of the team meeting Bill Clinton which was the highlight. The children from Rwanda and USA are in the Scholastic Press Corp and are preparing for the big event on Friday ‘the first ever Kids Gorilla Summit“. Children from around the world have been sending in questions that will be answered on Friday by a panel. This unique Scholastic event gives childrens a challenge to help save mountain gorillas. It will be live broadcast through schools in USA. To watch the 1 minute animations called gorillasodes made by children from Rwanda and USA watch here

I’ll be bringing  more news and pictures from New York over coming days.

Tags: Bill Clinton, Gorillas, Gorillasodes, Miza, mountain gorillas, Scholastic, wildlifedirect

4 responses so far

Category: Gorillas | Date: Sep 17 2008 | By: baraza

Though it was announced back in June  the launch of our newest childrens book is actually taking place next weekend in New York. The book is part of a campaign that was born out of a commitment to action made at the 2007 Clinton Global Initiative shortly after last summer’s tragic massacre of ten mountain gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Virunga National Park. The campaing includes the publication of Looking for Miza: The True Story of the Mountain Gorilla Family Who Rescued One of Their Own (Scholastic Press), and the creation of a multi-platform and standards-based educational initiative that will teach children, teachers and parents about the gorilla crisis.

All of the authors and photographer Peter Greste will be in New York for the launch. We will give you details about the events that will be taking place in case you’d like to attend.

I was very pleased to read the first book review on Amazon.com

“Moving, inspiring, informative, beautifully illustrated, and very, very important. This is a true story about one family of mountain gorillas, living in the Virunga National Forest (currently occupied by rebel army forces) and their attempts to return a lost orphan to their fold. “Miza” will engage your mind and steal your heart. You cannot ignore the plight of these magnificent creatures whose lives hang in such delicate balance, threatened by deforestation, poaching, and infection and war. Their innocence, so similar to our own, is poignantly and simply stated: “When gorillas feel safe, they play.”

Another review is on Eco Childs play here.

Craig Hatkoff, my friend and co-author of the book  wrote a moving piece about how this project came about on the scholastic website

“When we first started the Looking of Miza project, the only photograph we had of Miza was the picture that now appears on the back cover of the book. It was a photo of just an eye peering through a bush, snapped by Peter Greste last summer. It was the only photo Peter could get of Miza, who was still traumatized from her ordeal of being lost in the jungle. Park rangers Diddy and Innocent confirmed it was Miza by her distinct and now-famous nose print. With only that one photo in our possession, we agreed with Scholastic to do the book even if we couldn’t get any other pictures of Miza because of the importance of telling Miza’s story and raising global awareness of the mountain gorilla crisis”.

This article goes on to show how a book cover is so important, and how much effort it took to get the “right” book cover.

If you have the book  and have read it, please tell us if you like it - or if you don’t.

Tags: Craig Hatkoff, gorilla, Looking for Miza, Paula Kahumbu, Scholastic, Turtle Pond, wildlifedirect

12 responses so far

Category: Gorillas | Date: Sep 15 2008 | By: baraza

I got this great news from PASA the Pan African Sanctuaries Alliance today.

FIRST RESCUE CENTER FOR GORILLAS TO BE BUILT IN EAST AFRICA

International Partnership Will Reintroduce Rescued Gorillas in DR Congo

September 15, 2008 — The first center in eastern Africa designed to rescue, rehabilitate and reintroduce orphaned gorillas back into the wild will begin construction later this month in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The center will also include a conservation education and public information program, and will work in partnership with local conservationists and authorities.

The new center is projected to hold up to 30 eastern lowland (Grauer’s) and mountain gorillas and will be located on 370 acres of land within a 1,235-acre forested area near the Tayna Nature Reserve, in Kasugho, North Kivu, a stable region of eastern DR Congo.

The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International initiated the project, which has been granted funding from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and USAID. The Fossey Fund has already been caring for 11 such orphaned gorillas that are victims of poaching and other illegal activities, in temporary facilities in Rwanda and DR Congo, in partnership with the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project.

Eastern lowland gorillas (Gorilla beringei graueri) are classified as “endangered” and mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) are identified as “critically endangered” by the 2007 World Conservation Union (IUCN) Red List, and experts consider both subspecies at high risk for extinction within several decades.

“This is a critical opportunity for us to help many more young gorillas that have been victimized by unlawful activity or habitat destruction, and also to strengthen our partnership with the people who are the true stewards of the land and the animals,” says Fossey Fund president Clare Richardson. “All gorilla species are threatened with extinction. Both public education and rehabilitation services are critical to their chances for survival.”

“Rescued gorillas require intensive care and specialized psychological rehabilitation if they are ever to contribute to the long-term survival of their species,” says Alecia Lilly, Ph.D., Fossey Fund vice president. “Our decades-long studies of mountain gorillas and ongoing work with eastern lowland gorillas will provide a sound basis for this rehabilitation and socialization process.”

The Fossey Fund will operate the facility in partnership with the Congolese conservation authority ICCN (Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature) and the Pan African Sanctuary Alliance (PASA). Also included in the partnership are the Tayna Nature Reserve and Tayna Center for Conservation Biology, the association of community-based gorilla reserves in Congo (UGADEC), Conservation International, the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund and animal experts from Disney’s Animal Programs.

The Pan African Sanctuary Alliance (PASA), a Portland-based organization that represents 18 primate sanctuaries in 12 African countries, will coordinate design and construction of the facility. PASA will also draw up a management team and staff to run the center once it is opened.

“Unfortunately, orphaned gorillas have become a serious problem in eastern Africa,” says Doug Cress, PASA executive director. “With the creation of a specialized center, we will be better able to meet their unique needs and begin to reduce the poaching and illegal trade that has decimated these species.”

The Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund will provide funding toward initial operating expenses for the facility. In addition, experts from Disney’s Animal Programs will provide materials and in-kind services to assist with development and construction of the center, help relocate the current orphaned gorillas and provide educational opportunities for students and the community.

“We are pleased to collaborate with these respected conservation groups to provide staff expertise and funding in the creation of this much-needed facility to rehabilitate young, orphaned gorillas and, ultimately, reintroduce them back into the wild,” says Jackie Ogden, Ph.D., vice president of Disney’s Animal Programs and Environmental Initiatives.

The land for the new center was donated by the Tayna Center for Conservation Biology. The site is adjacent to approximately 222,000 acres of forest in a fully protected nature reserve.

10 responses so far

Category: Gorillas | Date: Sep 12 2008 | By: baraza

Last month, US and European Union diplomats warned that despite a peace deal that was signed in January, the situation in eastern DR Congo was becoming increasingly tense and that all sides were rearming and that fighting would soon beak out. Their prediction came true, heavy fighting broke out on 28 August.  Tens of thousands of people are again fleeing - Pierre posted numerous photos illustrating this in the gorilla blog here.

Clashes have occurred on the main road between Goma and Bukavu, the capitals of North and South Kivu, respectively. The UN has 17,000 peacekeepers in DR Congo. The unit called Monuc, is the largest peace keeping force in the world! They are supposed to monitor a 2003 peace deal to end a conflict that drew in at least eight other African countries.

Black lines represent movements of people in the 1990s, red lines are more recent movements in the 2000s. Tents are IDP camps.

Rwindi and Kibirizi are just south of Lake Edward. Fighting is occurring right inside the Virunga National Park.

According to the BBC, “Monuc, have mobilised to block the advance of troops loyal to General Laurent Nkunda. The head of the Monuc in DR Congo, said that his forces had intervened using force to assist the DR Congo Armed Forces re-establish their position.

“We used force to send out a strong signal to say that we shall not allow the CNDP (Gen Nkunda’s forces) to occupy Nyanzale,” he said.

Yesterday diplomats based in the DR Congo made a rare joint appeal for the army and rebels to stop fighting in the east. The statement was signed by representatives of the UN, African Union, EU and the US demanded that all forces return to the positions they held last month.

The diplomats’ want all sides, including the Congolese army to stop all movements . , except for those undertaken alongside Monuc against the FDLR (Army for the liberation of Rwanda which is made up mainly of Interharamwe and armed forces of Rwanda)  - a different rebel group based in the area.”

To me, one of the saddest fall outs of this war is that children make up 30 per cent to 50 per cent of the fighting forces in eastern Congo. Boys are used as soldiers and porters, girls become sex slaves. According to UNICEF, only 4 in 10 children in the region have been enrolled in school

THIS IS MADNESS!!! WHY WHY WHY?

I’ve struggled to find some sense in what is going on in Eastern Congo ever since I joined WildlifeDirect. The best sugestion  I can find, is that the FDLR leaders are accused of fleeing to DR Congo after taking part in the genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda more than ten years ago.

Most people agree that their presence in DR Congo lies at the heart of years of recent unrest. Gen Nkunda, believes he is protecting Hutu’s from these killers who are also known as the Interharamwe. He has previously refused to disarm, accusing the army of working with the FDLR against Tutsis who live in the region.

If this is true then the solution is almost impossible to envisage. Nkunda claims to be protecting Congolese Tutsi’s and in doing so is keeping the ruthless killers from returning to Rwanda. But he is also illegally occupying some places in eastern Congo where his militia  and those of the Congolese army keep pushing against each other. Both sides are guilty of atrocities too painful to describe here.

So what can be done? What if we just remove the Interharamwe to a neutral country? Would this unleash a lasting peace? How could it be done? There are nearly 20,000 of these people. Who would have them?

We’d love to read your thoughts. What do you think?How can peace be achieved in eastern Congo?

Here are some related news stories and web sites with additional information

United Nations News Center

Intstitute for Envirinmental Security

BBC News online http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7610913.stm

Global Security: Timeline of violence in Eastern Congo

Tags: eastern DR Congo, gorilla blog, MONUC, Virunga National Park, wildlifedirect

8 responses so far