Who wants to be a Millionaire?
Category: Out on Patrol | Date: Feb 28 2007 | By: admin
As promised, I will tell you how you can become an overnight millionaire in the Congo.
When the Belgiums left our country, many of their people buried stock piles of minerals in the ground in the hope to return at a later date and retrieve these valuable resources. As such, throughout Virunga National Park, it is possible to find small mounds of stones where these minerals are hidden. Here we are in the picture below, in Ishango, with one of these mounds which has been marked with stones.
It is possible to find under these mounds such minerals like red mercury, gold, zinc and uranium, however there is a catch. Not all of these mounds contain minerals, and instead some of them act as markers which, from the layout of the stones, reveal the true location of the minerals.
And so they act like a treasure map, and near the mound above we found four similar mounds. Unfortunately for us, this means that local people often come to the Park and dig up all the surrounding ground in search of these minerals and can cause much damage to the area.
Technorati : Advanced Rangers, Emeralds, Gold, Ishango, Uranium, WildlifeDirect, Zinc
Back from Ishango
Category: Out on Patrol | Date: Feb 27 2007 | By: admin
I am now back in Mutsora, after having been on patrol in Ishango. I am very pleased to say that our presence in the area kept the Mai Mai away and there was no repeat of the recent hippo slaughters.
While we were in Ishango, we not only patrolled the ground but took a pirogue along the river to check for evidence of illegal poachers.
We can do this from the pirogue as often the camp of the poachers is right on the edge of the river, as they need the water from the river to cook. It is important that we discourage the locals from fishing in the river, and instead only fish in Lake Edward, as the river is a spawning ground and fishing here will destroy recovery of the fish populations.
I have some more photos from our patrol in Ishango, which I will post up shortly, along with the secret of how, in the Congo, you can become a millionaire overnight.
Technorati : Advanced Force, Congo, DRC, Hippos, Ishango, Mutsora, WildlifeDirect
This is me on patrol in Ishango, northern shores of Lake Edward
Category: Out on Patrol | Date: Feb 17 2007 | By: admin
<img src=’http://elie.wildlifedirect.org/files/2007/03/elie-with-rangers-at-ishango-feb-07.JPG’ title=’elie-with-rangers-at-ishango-feb-07.JPG’ style=”DISPLAY: inline; WIDTH: 400px; HEIGHT: 264px” title=”DSC01322.JPG” height=”264″ width=”400″ alt=”DSC01322.JPG” border=”0″
This was taken last week.. but this is where I am at present and I have asked WildlifeDirect to put it up for me. I am with some of my men on patrol on Lake Edward. We are in the north where the last remaining hippos are…
Hello Friends…
Category: Life in Mutsora | Date: Feb 08 2007 | By: admin
Dear Friends…
My name is Elie Mundima Nkuba and I am the Commander of the Advance Force of Rangers in Virunga National Park, in the east of Democratic Republic of Congo. I am 41 years old and I have been a Ranger for over 17 years. I am married with 7 children, and we all live in Mutsora, a village just inside the park.
I have received quite a lot of training over the years, including as an alpine mountain guide and in Wildife Management. We recently received an intensive 6-month training course as part of the formation of the Advance Force, which is the group of elite rangers in the park.
Over the years I have worked all over the park, which is actually Africa’s oldest national park, established in 1925. I have worked directly to protect the Mountain Gorillas in the Mikeno sector, which borders Rwanda and Uganda. I have also been involved in anti-poaching patrols in Garamba in the north to protect the park from Sudanese groups who enter the park to hunt.
Our greatest challenge is protecting the Mountain Gorillas and other wildlife in the park. Many of our rangers have died protecting Mountain Gorillas from land invasions, poachers and rebels – nearly 100 in the last 10 years - but so far we have been fairly successful. The population of Gorillas actually has increased by about 14% during the terrible civil war that has affected our country since 1996. The war is officially over, but the weapons, and the militias, are still around.
We’re short of support. We rarely get our salaries from the government (and subsequently we are helped by donations from abroad) and we struggle to provide rations and equipment for patrols. Part of the reason is that we are so isolated, which is why I am so grateful for this blog and your support.
This blog will be a diary of our efforts to protect the Mountain Gorillas of Virunga and other wildlife in the park. My wish is that this blog might inspire others, wherever they are in the world, to join in our struggle to protect our Mountain Gorillas who are now on the edge of extinction.
I am also eager to know more about you all. This is a very new experience for me, and I must say I am very much looking forward to it.
My very very best from Virunga National Park,
Elie Mundima
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