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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6 Responses to “Hello Friends…”
Vanessa Rogier, on 09 Mar 2007
Dear Elie,
Thank you for starting this blog - this is new for many of us as well! We spend more time with animals then computers!
There are several of us here at the Zoo working in some way to support you and the Park Rangers of Congo.
They are:
Kelley, Heather, Patty, Barbara, Elena, Valerie, John, Adam, Nicole and myself, Vanessa.
Happy Hollow Zoo is home to a variety of animals including a few from Africa - three species of lemurs, meerkats, Spurred tortoise and a large herd of African pygmy goats. We are home to a group of capybaras, Sophia the jaguar, many birds and a fishing cat, just to name a few.
We are involved in many conservation projects all around the globe. We work to support Orangutans in Indonesia, Jaguars in Belize, we have supported efforts to halt the bushmeat crisis in your area of the world and have worked locally to protect our own open space lands.
We are honored to be working with you!
Our best to you from Happy Hollow Zoo.
elie, on 12 Mar 2007
Hello Vanessa. And Greetings to you all at Happy Hollow Zoo! I have been having a look around your website and am very impressed with all the hard work that you do.
I too am honored that we are now working together here to protect the wildlife here in Virunga.
Nous sommes ensemble.
Elie
Georgia, on 15 Mar 2007
Hello Elie - I have just found out about Wild Life Direct and all the wonderful work you all do. I will be passing it along to my children’s teachers with the hope that they will want their classes to get involved and we will help in any way that we can! God Bless and keep safe!
Georgia, Matthew and Emma
elie, on 25 Mar 2007
Hello Georgia
I’m so glad that you found us here. And thank you so much for your words and your help. It is most appreciated.
Elie
Tima, on 18 Apr 2007
nice photos of this blog
Achim, on 17 Dec 2007
Hello Elie
For now nearly a half year since I heard about this blog I follow your hard work for the wildlife of virunga national park. It would be a pleasure to me to get in ontact with you to discuss some of my ideas I collected over the last months. you might be interestes in some of my ideas. So f there is a way to built up a contact via email.
Greetings and my best wishes for you and all the rangers
Achim
(Germany)
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