Thursday, January 27, 2011

Peace Parks Under Threat

Parks for peace....riddled with violence?  What's going on?

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10701982

Just the other day, I posted news on the death of 3 rangers and 5 soldiers in Virungas NP, part of the Central Albertine Rift TFPA Network.  Today, it's football players getting gunned down in a small peace park in Juarez.

One of the things about peace parks is that it's still an evolving term.  Some people equate peace parks to transboundary protected areas.  This is, at least in part, based on the assumption that collaborative conservation across borders inevitably nurtures peace.  It's is one of the key theoretical underpinnings of environmental peacebuilding, one of the main arguments for peace parks, so I believe that they're right, there is peace-building inherently occurring in transboundary collaboration, but what's wrong with being explicit about peace?  About demanding it outright, conservation AND peace.  Maybe, that's what we need, to just state it loud and clear and to accept no less.

The Central Albertine Rift TFPA Network is a transboundary protected area, but not officially recognized as a peace park.  When I asked whether or not there was any movement in the direction of declaring it as such, the answer that I got is "no."  It seems park people are afraid to ask for too much.  Proponents of transboundary conservation in the Central Albertine Rift are currently working on a trilateral agreement between the three governments to formally recognize their efforts and to allow for more cooperative arrangements (park authorities are now limited in their joint activities because of legal constraints).  If they can move the draft treaty forward and get governmental support for cross-border conservation activities to protect the wildlife, they're happy.  Asking for peace on top of that, would just complicate things. 

I've even been told that including a peace objective in the treaty may confuse the most important issue - biodiversity conservation.  Some have advised me that I shouldn't push the issue either, let my idealisms hinder practicalisms.  But, I can't help but ask.....when insecurity in the DRC, for example, is leading to the deaths of over 160 rangers (not to mention civilians, combatants, etc.), a horrifying amount of illegal poaching, logging, natural resources and arms trafficking, etc.....how is conflict not directly related to biodiversity protection?  Is positive peace not a critical factor to effective conservation?  Don't we need peace?

I could be wrong, but I think that people are afraid to demand peace.  It's like talking about peace is for "hippies" only or something.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

A Photographic Review

These aren't actually my photos, but since all of my photos are sitting mysteriously locked up in small film canisters in a dark corner of my bookshelf waiting to be developed still, I thought I'd post these for those who are in need of visual stimulation beyond the babble of my words.  Photo cred go to Lillian, Patrick or whoever was holding the camera at the time.

Some photos of the living room in its earlier more bare walled days:

 Birthday dinner: gotta grub like you're celebrating
 New friends and old friends: housewarming and my 29th

 UPeace Alumni Reunion: George, my old neighbor from Ciudad Colon and I meet again
 It's not a UPeace party without some dancing
 Patrick and his field assistant (whose name sounds an awful lot like God)
Patrick was worried, but with a bamboo stick and some wellies, the hike was amazing
 Shaima and I visiting Lillian at the hospital during some of my first days in Uganda
 My Comorian colleague at the "Greening of Water Law in Africa" conference

Conservation Martyrs

Sorry to be Debbie Downer, but I can't let this information go without sharing:

VIRUNGA NATIONAL PARK
INSTITUT CONGOLAIS POUR LA CONSERVATION DE LA NATURE
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


24th January 2011

For more information go to www.gorilla.cd/blog

Attack on Ranger Patrol in Congo’s Virunga National Park leaves 8 dead and 3 critically injured

Three rangers and five Congolese soldiers have been killed during a violent attack on their patrol vehicle in Congo's Virunga National Park. A rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) hit the early morning patrol when it fell into an ambush approximately one kilometer north of Mabenga, just inside the park border. The rangers were being deployed along a road that passes through the national park in an attempt to secure a safe passage for the public.  The attackers, who escaped on foot, are believed to be FDLR Rwandan militia, an illegal movement believed to include the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide in 1994.  The attack is thought to have been carried out in retaliation for the destruction of two of their camps by park rangers in December 2010.

The attack took place about 100 km north of the city of Goma. This is the worst attack on Virunga Park patrols in over a year.  Park rangers and regular army units have been working together to secure the area within the national park known to be heavily frequented by FDLR militia.

"We are deeply saddened by the loss of our colleagues who were killed in their efforts to protect the public from illegal armed groups" said Virunga Park Director Emmanuel de Merode. "130 of Virunga's rangers have died since the beginning of the war in 1996, but the park's staff remains determined to protect the park"

The rangers will be burried tomorrow morning at the park cemetary on the banks of the Rutshuru River.  The injured are in a critical state and have been moved to Rutshuru hospital.  

Some 400 Park Rangers protect Virunga National Park in eastern DRC, a region affected by a 12-year civil war and political instability. The Park is home to mountain gorillas, lowland gorillas, chimpanzees, forest elephants and rhinos, among other wildlife. The Rangers have remained active in protecting these parks, four of which have been classified as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. Poaching, wildlife trafficking and habitat destruction remain the key threats to the survival of the wildlife in the park.

Editor’s Notes:

The Congolese Wildlife Authority (ICCN) and its Rangers work throughout the country to protect the National Parks of Congo and their wildlife from poachers, rebel groups, illegal miners and land invasions. Over 160 Rangers have been killed in the last 10 years protecting the 5 parks of eastern DRC, and Rangers worked throughout the civil war, rarely receiving a salary.

Virunga National Park, Africa’s oldest national park (established in 1925) and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979, is home to 200 of the world’s mountain gorillas and a small population of eastern lowland gorillas. Formerly known as Albert National Park, Virunga lies in eastern DR Congo and covers 7,800 square kilometers. The park is managed by the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature, the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN).

For additional information and/or photographs please contact:

Emmanuel de Merode, Director of Virunga National Park:
edemerode@gorilla.cd or +243 99 344 8133

Joel Wengamulay
, Communications Director, Virunga National Park:
joel@gorilla.cd or +243 99 773 3521

---

I can't help but highlight at this time that this puts the body count of rangers alone at over 160 in the Eastern DRC.  This obviously says nothing of civilians, combatants, or even tourists.  It also says nothing about the pandemic rape, torture, environmental devastation and oppression.

The tragic thing about so much of the violence in the Eastern DRC is that it's being driven by forces far beyond their borders and by everyday people who care so little or not at all.  It's the hideous nature of globalization and our excessive demand for cheap natural resources; the lack of control that we have over our governments and the careless way that we condone their use of violence and proliferation of arms and mechanisms of death, pain and suffering.

Maybe it's difficult to hear, but we all have a role in these deaths and violence.  That means though that we also have a choice in what that role might be.  As they say, are you part of the problem or are you part of the solution?

New Kid on the Block

Liz says I remind her of "Contentment" as described by Ruth Gendler.  I'm not sure what that means, but this is what I've managed to dig up online:

"Contentment has learned how to find out what she needs to know. Last year she went on a major housecleaning spree. First she stood on her head until all the extra facts fell out. Then she discarded about half her house. Now she knows where every thing comes from—who dyed the yarn dark green and who wove the rug and who built the loom, who made the willow chair, who planted the apricot trees. She made the turquoise mugs herself with clay she found in the hills beyond her house.

When Contentment is sad, she takes a mud bath or goes to the mountains until her lungs are clear. When she walks through an unfamiliar neighborhood, she always makes friends with the local cats."
J. Ruth Gendler (The Book of Qualities

Liz is the new Fulbrighter from Omaha, Nebraska.  We were roommates at orientation something like half a year ago.  Now she's moved out to Uganda to start her 10-month research project on sanitary pads.  Sanitary pads in terms of girls and education, health and sanitation, waste production and management...all interesting stuff.  I would write more on it, but I think that's her task here for the next months.  So, when she publishes something wonderful, I'll forward it on.  Basically, Liz is a journalist/writer by training, but most likely by nature, I'm sure. 

Liz has moved into the building adjacent to mine; we're in nearly identical apartments.  I'm A-2, she's B-2.  The layout is exactly the same, except that my flat has a serious amount of very blue carpeting, while hers is that dark red painted over concrete/cement that so many of these homes in developing countries are floored with.  Strangely, her place is almost nearly empty of everything except for its not so attractive large furniture.  We think most of it is actually shipped over from the U.S.  Something about the stickers on a lot of the furniture that say something about the U.S. Information Agency might be what's giving it away.

Crazy for such furniture to come from so far when equally unattractive and probably much cheaper furniture is also available here.  I highly doubt that that esteemed U.S. agency of ours can tell me that they shipped it all the way here because it's special sustainably harvested woods, not acquirable here in such close proximity to so much of the world's illegal timber activities.

Speaking of illegal activities, I'm learning a few interesting things.  Just this weekend, we made a quick stop at the Aviation Club in Kampala.  Apparently it's one of only two places (the other being Entebbe Int'l Airport) in this country where you can get aviation fuel and it's also the only place to get one of those small planes that zip around the region and land on those grassy air strips that are everywhere. 

Rumor is, those little planes are also what's trafficking a lot of the illegally extracted natural resources out of the DRC.  In the parks where I work along the border with DRC, you can see these small planes flying in and out all the time.  I highly doubt they're carrying tourists.  But, my question is.....if those planes are trafficking illegal resources and one place they must fly in and out of or refuel at is here in Uganda at the Aviation Club....why is it so hard to stop these guys?  I mean, I think I know the answer to my own question (corruption runs deep and powerful), but that doesn't make the answer any more acceptable.

I'm brought back to the question underlying so much of my master's thesis.  What do individuals and communities do when their governments aren't fulfilling their end of the social contract?  If the governments do not take proactive steps to protect natural resources and landscapes, or at the very least to prevent harmful activities?  Or even worse, if the governments themselves are the ones who are engaging in the harmful or even illicit acts?  It's not the first time I've come across such blatant corruption.  The villagers and park rangers in many parts of Central America that I have worked in have told me similar stories of government abuse.  But again, the question is, what do we do?  What can we do?

Saturday, January 15, 2011

One of these days, I'm going to sit down and write a long letter

MIA for a month, but justifiably so.  Have been in the bush, in the forests, climbing mountains, getting soaked by the rain, interviewing people, sharing ideas, promoting peace parks, visiting gloriously beautiful places with little or no internet and only sitting down in front of the computer when it's absolutely necessary. 

Basically, I turned 29, threw a little housewarming/birthday party at my flat in Kampala, had a few local visitors and my first international visitor, then took off with my supervisor (Emmanuel) and his family for the village, Bushamba.  We had a minibus packed with people, laughter and stories that went caroling down the bumpy dirt roads, stopping to pick up fresh vegetables, tiny eggs that are shockingly yellow when cooked, fruit and what along the side of the road.  We reached Bushamba by night and there was a small group to greet us, Emmanuel's brother and his family, and all the people who work for them. 

For the next handful or so days, Ale (my Italian visitor friend) and I would sleep in late, eat ridiculous amounts of food, play with the kids, hang out with the adults and take small excursions to nearby places - the top of the hill where the water tank is, the magical lake that flooded out a serpentine valley one day (there's a great story behind it that maybe I'll tell in another post someday), the local trading centers, or just the outdoor courtyard to watch football (aka soccer) matches between U.K. teams projected on to a wall of the house in the dark of the night.  Ale had brought delicious cakes and sweets from Italy, which we spread out over the days and shared with all.  There were also a good handful of birthdays and tasty cakes across a spattering of days and sadly, one death in the family.  I've never met him before, but Rogers' father had been ill for some time.  He missed Rogers and Sandra's wedding to pass away the morning after Christmas.  As it goes, that's the circle of life and as Rogers said, now he's in heaven.

For the first time possibly ever, I went to church on Christmas day.  In this super religious country, I am considered the worst of all things, a pagan they say.  Nevertheless, on Christmas day, I put on the best clothes I'd brought (jeans and a t-shirt) and went with the family to church.  Everyone was packed into wooden benches on 3 sides of the small building and Emmanuel's father sat at the front by the cross.  Once an active community priest, he had relatively few words for the congregation that day.  Other, younger members, have taken over most of his duties.  Singing, drumbeating, dancing and prayers later....the fun part began...the auction.  Villagers had come to church carrying all kinds of joys from their gardens, tall sugarcanes, spiky pineapples, baskets of eggs, beans, potatoes, avocados, and so on.  These were piled at the front and auctioned, one by one.  Emmanuel's family ended up buying nearly everything, then sallied out just as indiscretely as they had entered.  They were blessed and God was thanked for bringing the bazungus (white people) to church, a.k.a. Ale and me.

Just a couple days before the new year, Aunt Betty (Emmanuel's sister) offered us transport for 6 days of travel through the parks.  It's really difficult reaching some of these parks or moving around inside them, so this was amazingly helpful.  We took off immediately for Mgahinga Gorilla NP at the very southwest corner of Uganda.  From there, you can see Rwanda and the DRC.  Three national parks meeting at one stupendous volcano, it's the kind of stuff that makes me giddy.  Ale went mountain gorilla trekking while I met with the wardens, then the next day he went golden monkey trekking while I spoke with a local NGO. 

New Year's Eve, UWA threw a party and we were invited...at one point, even introduced to the community.  After a healthy plate of food and seemingly endless speeches, Ale asked me what time I thought it was.  I said....9pm, 930?  His expression indicated that I couldn't be more wrong.  So I said, what?  10pm?  He said, no....it's 8, 8:10 to be exact.  I stared back at him and said oh no....if I'm going to make it past midnight, I think we should leave and come back.  It was way too early and the party really hadn't gotten started yet.  So, we took off, back to the community camp and hung out a bit with the people there, packed up our stuff for the next day's travel, and eventually at around 11:40pm, headed back to the party just across the road. 

It didn't take long for me to realize that I was one of only three females, the rest of the party was all men, some UWA staff, even a soldier here and there, but mostly loads of really drunken local villagers.  Thankfully, Izza was the diplomatic bouncer of the night, dancing up to any possibly threatening guy (especially those too drunk to keep themselves from falling all over everyone around them) and casually dancing them away.  Turns out, biggest danger was actually one of the other women!  Short, tiny little lady with shiny eyes and a drunken smile, had a baby strapped to her back...seemed harmless enough at first (I mean, the baby was still sleeping right?), but then she started to dance with me.  Really close.  Really wrong.  I won't say more, not here.

The next morning we said goodbye to the villagers and UWA and found ourselves with a new driver.  The guy who had taken us from Bushamba to Mgahinga and who was supposed to be with us for those 6 days, was at a party, so he sent another guy to drop us at Nkuringo on the southern side of Bwindi Impenetrable NP.  The plan was to get dropped in Nkuringo, hike through the forest to Buhoma and then get picked up to go to Mweya in Queen Elizabeth NP for the night.  Since we had a new driver now who was only supposed to drop us in Nkuringo and another driver was picking us up in Buhoma, Ale and I were forced to repack our backpacks and to hike through the rainforest with all our stuff.  It was a beautiful walk, but between the packs and the pouring rain, all I could think about was making it to Buhoma.  We were hours behind schedule and hadn't had anything to eat since early morning.  In Buhoma, we devoured a plate of food in our soggy clothes, hopped in a van with a new driver and took off for the bush.

We pulled into Queen in the dark of the night, had to let ourselves into the park gate because no one was there anymore, and then slept in the wrong house.  Basically, I've only been to Lu's house and I understood that all these researchers stay at his place (I also had to present my papers last time when I stayed there), so when I called UWA to reserve space in the Researcher's House, I assumed it was his.  Wrong.  When I went to Lu's house, two of the doors (his and Joe's) were locked and the other one was occupied by Jennifer (with the ringed mongoose project).  Agnes told me that she'd left the door to my room unlocked for me, so I was perplexed to find myself shut out.  Then she told me to ask for Winston...but there was no Winston in the house.  Strange.  It was too late to sort things out, so that night, we slept out in the living room.  Which is where I slept last time anyway.  The next morning, James walks in and tells me that the Researcher's House is two houses down.  Woops.

Finally in the right place, I discovered the door to the room unlocked and realized that I'd met Winston before at the UWA HQ in Kampala.  Ale and I hung our things up to dry and put the shoes out in the sun.  I childishly played around a bit with one of Joe's camera traps, so he now has a few photos of me sitting on the dry grass behind Lu's house, but he won't know that until he returns to his cameras a week from now. 

Queen Elizabeth is kind of an expensive place if you're just a tourist and don't have your own transport, so we didn't spend long there.  I had my meetings at the park HQ and then we cut out and made our way to Rwenzori Mtns. NP.  The park warden is really friendly and talkative guy, such a character, and he seemed pleased to have a researcher.  Apparently there aren't many, I'm the only one in the last couple months I think.  So, he set us up at the community camp at the base of the Central Circuit, which takes you up to the glacial peaks of Speke, Stanley and Margherita (the all-famous).  The next days were filled with interviews with rangers and some of the local organizations, plus a sweet day of hiking up to Camp 1 and Lake Mahoma, where they used to mine minerals and siphon off lake water until they realized that if they just kept pumping water out along with all mine tailings, the lake was going to dry up. 

We hung out by the lake and watched thick clouds cover and uncover layers of peaks and mountains before deciding that it was best to start heading down, clouds didn't look so good.  Not long after we started making our way through the steep slopes of the bamboo forest it started to pour rain.  It was like Bwindi all over again, but this time the path was steep so we spent lots of time sliding down muddy slopes and tearing up our knees. 

On the way, we passed trails of porters carrying heavy looking bags of gear with a strap across their forehead.  I was only slightly miffed to find that there was only one European looking tourist at Camp 1....all those men for him?  Thing is, each porter probably gets paid about 6,000-8,000UGX ($3-4) a day, so if you've got some money, you can hire an army.  None of these porters are well-equipped for the Rwenzoris.  They have thin shirts and pants, maybe a pair of wellies.  We're talking about an 8-day trek up to 5,109m and across snow and glaciers.  I don't know how they do it, especially for so little pay.

Porters, guides and campsites on the Central Circuit are the exclusive concessions of Rwenzori Mountaineering Services.  Allegedly a community-based organization that's set up to provide jobs for the local poor and to protect their precious mountain environments, it has a horrible reputation for tricky bookkeeping, poor environmental practices, untrained guides and drunken porters (no joke, I was witness).  It's no surprise the management looks like they're making bank and everyone else looks like they're no better off than they were before.  Unfortunately, their concession from UWA has decades of monopoly to go.

The Rwenzoris themselves are amazing though; I dreamt about buying land there and putting up my own little yurt or cabina.  They say those mountains are sacred, I believe it. 

From the Rwenzoris we went to Kibale NP.  Kibale is further east and not so close to the border with DRC, so it was a bit strange to be talking about transboundary conservation when there is no boundary and little to no interaction with the Congo.  I think what happened is Kibale NP is the headquarters for the entire Kibale Conservation Area, which includes Semuliki NP and some of the other protected areas along the border with Congo.  In Rwenzori Mtns NP and Semuliki NP, all of the rangers and locals can tell you about the ADF conflicts that led to thousands of deaths and park closures not so long ago, not to mention all of the Congolese refugees that have settled this side of the border who are now exerting additional pressure on park resources.  But in Kibale, it's all about primates and rocket stoves.  Eyes glaze over when I talk about the transboundary network and collaborative conservation across borders.

In Semuliki, the dialogue appropriately returned to transboundary conservation, however, and it was really interesting.  Military presence around Semuliki is heavy, mud and wattle army barracks are here and there and they work closely with UWA to share security information, sometimes also to herd encroaching cattle out of the nearby Toro-Semliki Wildlife Reserve, where my friend Paul is the law enforcement warden and fighting a constant battle against cattle grazing in the park.  The ICCN (park authorities in DRC) has fled the northern sector of Virungas NP to Goma as insecurity reigns and UWA is left to fight all the cross-border trafficking (lots of timber) and poaching on their own.  For the last half year or so, transboundary collaboration this side of the PA network has fallen apart.  As the Rio Declaration says, "Peace, development and environmental protection are interdependent and indivisible" and "Warfare is inherently destructive of sustainable development."

This is what peace parks are all about.

Yesterday, I left Semuliki and returned to Kampala.  Got off the bus as it hit traffic in Kampala near Mango Hospital and got on a boda boda.  Bad idea.  Yesterday, I had my first motorcycle accident.  The boda boda rider ran into another boda parked in front towards the side of the road and we all went spilling to the gnarly ripped up asphalt below.  I went down on the left with my backpack and all, tearing up my left hand and knee.  It's like someone took a cheese grater to my skin.  But thankfully, we weren't going so fast, so the impact wasn't crippling.  I got up a little stunned and looked at the boda man like he was crazy.  He looked at me to get back on so we could proceed.  Not really knowing what else to do, I did, but only after sternly advising that he ride really carefully because that totally wasn't cool.  In front of Makerere, I got off and said, sorry but I'm not going to pay for that.  He said, how about just 1,000UGX?  Again, I looked at him like he was crazy and said, for what?  For dropping me?  And walked away.

As I fell, all I could think is that I couldn't believe this was happening.  For the last three days, Paul has been teaching me how to ride a motorcycle in an open football field of a local primary school.  I've been managing to ride around in circles, dodging kids and soccer balls, in and out of first and second gear, even third gear when we were on the open dirt road, and I'd just spent last night telling Paul how I'm afraid to get into some crazy accident, get knocked by a huge truck blasting through one of these dirt highways that cuts through so many of the national parks, or fall on one of these windy mountain roads filled with ditches and rocks.  These aren't exactly easy roads or terrain for an absolute beginner and I've definitely got a serious fear/respect for these machines, but, all I can say is that it would be so much easier to get around these parks if I had a motorcycle.  And now, I've had my first accident....hopefully last.

It's definitely time to get that helmet.