#kahuzi biega

[janvier-shweka90]

Gorilla Ambassadors is an environmental education program created by a group of young conservationists based in eastern DR Congo who are members of the organization Congo Tourism Gate created in 2019 to support the conservation of the Mountain Gorilla.

[iweb-rdc001]

Guerre du M23 : après le Nord-Kivu, des militaires rwandais préparent-ils un assaut contre le Sud-Kivu via le parc de Kahuzi Biega?

Par Charles Mapinduzi Les alertes sont de plus en plus persistantes. Alors qu’une accalmie apparente s’observe sur le terrain des affrontements au Nord-Kivu, notamment grâce à l’interposition des troupes de l’EAC, des soldats rwandais, de connivence avec des groupes armés locaux, tenteraient un autre coup contre le Sud-Kivu, via le parc national de Kahuzi-Biega. Déjà, les responsables de ce parc…

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

Africa’s top human rights commission said the Democratic Republic of Congo violated the rights of Indigenous Batwa people when it forcibly evicted them from their ancestral territories and imposed a national park on those lands without the original inhabitants’ consent. 

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights ordered the DRC to provide the Batwa legal title to their homelands, among more than a dozen other prescribed remedies. 

The decision was decided in 2022 but wasn’t made public until late June of this year. Lawyers involved said publication was delayed because of mistakes made in the text of the French version of the decision, and that the DRC has not taken any action to comply with the decision.

The government’s embassy in D.C. did not respond to a request for comment and also did not participate in the Commission’s proceedings despite requests that it do so.

Since Kahuzi-Biega National Park was established in 1970, the DRC has forced about 6,000 Batwa people, sometimes violently, from an area of rainforest in the eastern DRC the size of West Virginia. Those evictions began on the recommendation of a Congolese conservation organization, according to the Commission’s decision, despite the Batwa having a long and proven track record of protecting and preserving their homelands.

In its decision, the commission sharply criticized the logic behind “fortress conservation,” the removal of Indigenous peoples from their land in the name of protecting nature. That model, born in the United States with the creation of national parks like Yellowstone, has been exported around the world. Increasingly, it is being used in conjunction with some carbon offset programs. 

“If the purpose of creating a park is to protect biodiversity for the good of all, should the way of life, culture and environment of the indigenous populations occupying it not be taken into account?” the commission wrote.

The Batwa’s culture is entirely based on a thriving ecosystem, the commission said, and their removal may have worsened biodiversity in the region because park guards and governmental officials granted forest access to non-Batwa groups that carried out extractive activities including mining and logging, leading to severe deforestation and environmental degradation. The Congo Basin is home to sensitive ecosystems with iconic species, including chimpanzees, forest elephants and critically endangered gorillas. 

[cleverwordsandotherstuffilike]

Tucked In by Marcus Westberg

A Congolese care worker swaddles two rescued chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) as she might her own children. This photographer spent several weeks working in and around Kahuzi-Biega National Park, including at the associated Lwiro Primate Sanctuary, where over 100 rescued chimpanzees have been given a second chance at life. The result of this time is a remarkable photo that not only tugs at the heartstrings but reminds us that we are more alike than different.

[dailyanarchistposts]

Asia, Africa, India and Latin America

While we have been focusing on North America, the park model was actually exported throughout the world, forcing millions of tribal peoples out of their habitats/territories. The practice continues to this day in Asia, Africa and India, for example, where non-profit foundations and United Nations sponsored organizations are eagerly trying to protect what little land is left that hasn’t been destroyed by industrial modes of living.

Unfortunately, be it the Twa peoples expulsion from Congo’s Kahuzi-Biega National Park, the Maasai from the Amboseli National Park in Kenya or tribal people in southern India forced out of the Indira Gandhi National Park as part of an “eco-development” scheme funded by the Global Environment Facility, parks and conservation lands remain one more force which dispossesses tribal peoples. In Africa alone, one million square kilometers of land has been expropriated for conservation over the past one hundred years. Estimates in India range around three-quarters of a million people pushed off their traditional lands for conservation, in Africa the number is likely in the millions. Unfortunately, and ironically, land that has long been occupied and protected by indigenous peoples continues to be deemed “wild” and therefore suitable for “conservation” primarily by having them declared parks, thus making them out of bounds for the indigenous peoples who maintained them in the first place.

What happens to the people who once lived rich, meaningful lives within these habitats? They become like you and I. Dispossession leads to rootlessness, discouragement, depression, inability to be self-reliant, bad nutrition, broken communities, severed kinship ties, and anger, too often turned inward or directed to the nearest person.

I think we need to realize that dedication to creating parkland and conservation areas does not necessarily coincide with helping regenerate ways of living harmoniously with a habitat. More often than not it promotes a misanthropic outlook that posits intact, healthy land areas being by definition “human-free’’, rather than capitalism-free. We tend to ignore the fact that indigenous peoples seeking to maintain or renew their traditional life ways need to have access tothese areas, especially if the parkland in question was actually part of their traditional territory.

Even liberal organizations like UNESCO have begun to realize that there has been a negative social impact associated with many protected areas. In some places in Asia, Africa and Latin America, provisions have been made for local control so that traditional lifestyles might continue. But these tend to be limited “buffer zones”, where the original inhabitants can control “development projects”. These attempts have not succeeded.

Apparently coalitions of indigenous peoples have had some success in forcing international bodies to recognize their inherent right to manage their traditional territories. “In the 1990s, the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF), the World Conservation Congress and the World Commission on Protected Areas all adopted new policies and resolutions which strongly endorse indigenous peoples’ rights and promote the co-management of protected areas, based on negotiated agreements.[8]” However, these organizations aren’t arguing for free access to one’s habitat, but to “negotiated agreements” with outsiders and centralized authority, and land bases integrated into the scheme of state regulations and subject to the pressures of politics and the market.

Regardless of some recognition, many parks and conservation areas, especially in impoverished countries, remain part of the greater theft of traditional homelands by arrogant, powerful outsiders who impose their views of what constitutes healthy habitats. It isn’t parks and conservation areas that will help stem the tide of destruction and plunder, but recognition that new ways of living are required. And these new ways can be informed by the old ways ofland based people.

[gorillatrekkingsafari]

Where Can You Go Gorilla Trekking?

Gorilla trekking is a once-in-a-lifetime experience available in Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The best gorilla trekking destinations include

1. Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park

2. Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park, and

3. Kahuzi Biega National Park and Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Each park offers the opportunity to observe endangered mountain gorillas in their natural habitat. Gorilla Trekking permits vary by country, with Uganda and Congo being more affordable than Rwanda. Whether in Uganda, Rwanda, or Congo, gorilla trekking promises unforgettable encounters with these majestic primates.

Visit: https://www.gorilla-trekking-safari.com

Email: wildapesafaris@gmail.com

[nedsecondline]

Let’s save the wildlife – Eastern lowland gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri) – Myrela

Eastern lowland gorillas, also known as Grauer’s gorillas, are found only in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and are critically endangered, threatened by increased contact with humans. Of the four sub-species of gorilla, all of which live in equatorial Africa, the eastern lowland gorilla is the largest. It’s estimated that there are just 6,800 individuals living in DRC’s Kahuzi-Biega and…

[projectourworld]

All My Children: Human/Nature Finalist. Chimpanzees share nearly 99 percent of their DNA with human beings. At the Lwiro Primate Sanctuary in Kahuzi-Biega National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, this genetic bond is perhaps reflected in the relationships that form between orphaned chimps and their human caregivers. Wild chimps typically stay close to their mothers until they’re about 5 years old, so when a mother is killed by poachers, the separation can cause irreparable harm for young, developing chimps. Many of the orphaned chimpanzees brought to the sanctuary by Congolese wildlife officials arrive carrying both physical and emotional wounds. The healing at the sanctuary goes both ways: Some of the caregivers who feed, cuddle, and help rehabilitate chimps are themselves victims of sexual abuse who have found independence and employment working with chimpanzees. The photographer Marcus Westberg, who spent weeks at the sanctuary, said that caregivers treat the chimpanzees as tenderly if they’re human children, and the young chimps, likewise, often act like kids—alternately playful, mischievous, and vulnerable. Article ; Courtesy The Atlantic. Picture: Marcus Westberg / BigPicture Natural World Photography Competition #chimpanzees #caregivers #children

[soliloquyinthedark]

Kahuzi-Biéga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo

[iweb-rdc001]

Guerre du M23 : après le Nord-Kivu, des militaires rwandais préparent-ils un assaut contre le Sud-Kivu via le parc de Kahuzi Biega?

Par Charles Mapinduzi Les alertes sont de plus en plus persistantes. Alors qu’une accalmie apparente s’observe sur le terrain des affrontements au Nord-Kivu, notamment grâce à l’interposition des troupes de l’EAC, des soldats rwandais, de connivence avec des groupes armés locaux, tenteraient un autre coup contre le Sud-Kivu, via le parc national de Kahuzi-Biega. Déjà, les responsables de ce parc…

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Grist:

In the Kahuzi-Biega National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, park guards and Congolese soldiers, with support from international conservation groups, have undertaken a brutal, three-year campaign to violently remove the Indigenous Batwa people who call the park home. That’s according to a new report by Minority Rights Group International, a London-based human rights organization.

With support from the Wildlife Conservation Society, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, Congolese security forces have destroyed villages, murdered at least 20 residents, group raped at least 15 women, and displaced hundreds of Batwa in the name of conserving and protecting Kahuzi-Biega National Park, or PNKB. Batwa are an Indigenous people with communities throughout Central Africa and have inhabited the area that is now PNKB since time immemorial.

The report alleges that funding, material support, and training provided by international organizations and U.S. agencies violate a UN Security Council arms embargo as well as other international laws. Minority Rights Group International also alleges that organizations and agencies were aware of the attacks on Batwa, which took place between 2018 and 2021, and did nothing.

The park was established in 1937, when the country was still a colony of Belgium, by Belgian decree. But even after independence, the newly established Democratic Republic of the Congo opted to expel Indigenous Batwa communities from the park’s boundaries at the behest of Belgian conservationist Adrien Deschryver who lobbied the government to expand the park. Batwa were neither compensated for their land nor given a new place to live. Instead, they were forced to settle on the outskirts of the park, where they faced persecution and discrimination. An estimated 50 percent of the population died in the two decades following expulsion.

“Since we were expelled from our lands, death is following us,” said a Batwa community leader at the time. “We bury people nearly every day. The village is becoming empty. We are heading towards extinction.”

In October 2018, fed up with decades of persecution and broken promises, Batwa began returning to the forest. But the response was swift and brutal: In February 2019, park guards began working with the Congolese military, efforts that were coordinated by General Charles Mundos, who had been sanctioned by the UN Security Council in 2018. In April 2019, PNKB’s Director, De-Dieu Bya’Ombe reportedly issued a public ultimatum to all Batwa in the park to leave or be killed.

[grandmaster-anne]

The Countess of Wessex is in South Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Today, HRH met representatives from @TRIAL International; a non-governmental organization dedicated to fighting impunity for international crimes in conflict, and supporting survivors.

The Countess also met the people behind @EarthshotPrize finalist The Pole Pole Foundation, which protects the gorillas of the Kahuzi Biega National Park from poachers, and works with local communities on initiatives to develop skills for alternative, nonexploitative livelihoods.

@RoyalFamily

[funnywildlife]

A Big Caturday shout out from our very own conservation #wildographydudette & Kahuzi Biega National Park Ambassador @shannon_awp. * Be sure to give her a follow for regular updates & visit her website for mighty fine prints. https://shannonhinson-witz.com * Visit our latest blog to see other #featuredwildographers and DM us for a feature/shout out. https://wildography.com/2021/08/26/wildlife-photos-of-the-week/ #Wildography #WildographyandSafaris #AfricanSafaris #wildlifephotography #shannonhinsonwitz #bigcats #bigcatsofinstagram #bigcatsforever #cute #wildcats #wildlifephotos #wildlifeconservation #wildlifeplanet (at Serengeti National Park Tanzania) https://www.instagram.com/p/CUz3f8tsQoF/?utm_medium=tumblr

[gorillatrekkingsafari]

What is the Cheapest Way to See Gorillas?

If you’re dreaming of seeing gorillas but worried about the cost, you might be surprised to learn that one of the most affordable options is in Kahuzi Biega National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

While gorilla trekking in Uganda and Rwanda is famous, the prices in those countries can be quite high, with permits costing around $700 to $1,500. However, Kahuzi Biega National Park offers a much cheaper alternative. A gorilla trekking permit here costs about $400, making it one of the most budget-friendly ways to have this incredible experience.

The park is home to the eastern lowland gorillas, which are slightly different from the mountain gorillas you might find in other countries, but just as fascinating to watch. The treks are well-organized, and the area is much less crowded, allowing for a more intimate and less commercialized encounter with these majestic creatures.

So, if you’re after a gorilla experience without breaking the bank, Kahuzi Biega is a great option to consider. Plus, you’ll get the chance to explore a lesser-known and less-touristy part of Central Africa!

[female-malice]

This violence is unlikely to have taken place without the substantial support provided to the park by foreign governments and international organizations. Donors and partners have played an integral role in promoting an aggressive, militarized form of conservation and were instrumental in funding and shaping the paramilitary guards responsible for these abuses.

The violence of the past three years stems from the theft of Batwa lands and resources in the name of nature conservation. The creation and ongoing operation of Kahuzi-Biega National Park is rooted in an inherently violent ideology which mandates clearing natural landscapes to create an ‘unpeopled wilderness,’ void of the very people who safeguarded such ecosystems for generations.

The conservation projects are inherently violent and colonial, rendering them incompatible with the physical and cultural survival of indigenous peoples like the Batwa.

With several communities resolute in their commitment to remain on their ancestral lands, violent attacks by park guards against Batwa civilians are ongoing.

WWF is criticized for the practice of “fortress conservation,” where Indigenous peoples and local communities are displaced from their ancestral lands to create “pristine” protected areas, often involving the abuse of their human rights.

The acts were committed between 2019 and 2021 under the knowledge and paramilitary support of U.S and German government agencies and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), say the report’s researchers who obtained evidence through interviews with eyewitnesses and park guards involved in the attacks.

WCS denies allegations brought against the organization, saying it had no involvement in military operations. The KBNP bulletin denied similar reports of violence during a visit by the government agency that manages the park in February.

With support from the Wildlife Conservation Society, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, Congolese security forces have destroyed villages, murdered at least 20 residents, group raped at least 15 women, and displaced hundreds of Batwa in the name of conserving and protecting Kahuzi-Biega National Park, or PNKB. Batwa are an Indigenous people with communities throughout Central Africa and have inhabited the area that is now PNKB since time immemorial.