Gorillas, I

18Aug1999 RWANDA: FEATURE - Gorillas threatened in Africa's war-torn heart.

By Todd Pitman

SABINYO VOLCANO, Rwanda, Aug 18 (Reuters) - On the lush emerald slopes of northern Rwanda's mighty Sabinyo volcano, a family of 10 mountain gorillas - some of only a few hundred left on earth - relax in the mist under a light rain.

While two immense silver-backs forage for leaves and bamboo shoots, playful infants tumble down a bed of foliage and gaze curiously at a handful of tourists and park rangers a few metres (yards) away.

Higher up the mountain, 10 Rwandan soldiers equipped with radios, rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers survey the scene and the vast expanse of terraced hills and bamboo forests beyond.

Closed two years ago because of a low-level civil war, Volcanoes National Park in the tiny Central African nation of Rwanda re-opened to visitors last month.

Park officials say around 300 mountain gorillas - half the world's remaining population - live a precarious existence in forests that stretch across the chain of extinct volcanoes straddling Rwanda's northern borders with Uganda and the Congo.

Pushed steadily further up the slopes by an ever-expanding human population below, the gorillas' habitat has been threatened by villagers and refugees in need of land and firewood, as well as poachers and armed conflicts that have plagued Africa's Great Lakes region for decades.

Despite the dangers that surround them - animal snares, landmines and nervous gun-toting rebels to name a few - Rwanda's gorillas have fared relatively well.

"In the last few years we've had no losses among our gorilla population," park conservationist Justin Rurangirwa told Reuters while negotiating his way through a series of bamboo tunnels at Sabinyo's base.

"On the contrary, we've recorded five births recently and the numbers are going up."

IN CONGO, GORILLA POPULATIONS DECIMATED

But if the situation in Rwanda has improved, it stands in stark contrast to eastern Congo's Kahuzi-Biega National Park, the home of a nearly identical subspecies that comprise the tallest apes on the planet.

Although eastern lowland gorillas are more abundant than their Rwandan cousins - they number between 2,500 to 5,000 - they are dying out much faster.

From an original population of around 250 living in the highlands of Kahuzi-Biega, 94 gorillas have been poached since 1996, 20 of them since April alone.

"We're trying to rehabituate the gorillas to the presence of humans, but it's not easy," said park director Germain Mankoto, struggling through a dense equatorial rainforest to glimpse a lone, handless gorilla clearly wary of the soldiers and rangers tracking it.

"Now that they have been hunted by armed groups, they have no more trust in man," he said, adding that three of the five groups used to tourists had been completely wiped out.

The timid young male, which lost its hand in an snare meant for antelopes, illustrates the gravity of the problem: it is one of only five surviving members of a troop which originally numbered 19.

Authorities say they are doing what they can to stop poaching - 14 people have been arrested in recent weeks - but bringing a halt to the killings is difficult.

VILLAGERS, PYGMIES HUNT FOR FOOD

Pygmies living in the forests once hunted freely in eastern Congo, but when Kahuzi-Biega became a national park in 1970, they were forced out into nearby villages with no land and no compensation.

Many retain a deep knowledge of the parklands and make a living not only as private hunters, but as trackers for both rangers and poachers alike.

Lubanga Bulabi, a 50-year-old pygmy living on the outskirts of Kahuzi-Beiga, offered a typical excuse when he was arrested while hunting in the park last month.

"I went to lay snares for antelopes and monkeys and to look for some honey," he said. "I went into the forest because I was hungry."
Evidence of the destruction is abundant: near the park's entrance lies a collection of animal skins, elephant bones, gorilla skulls, and a cache of poachers' tools, including snares, knives and spears.
As in Rwanda, the flora and fauna of Kahuzi-Biega is under immense pressure from the people living around it, most of whom struggle to make a living and have little other choice but to hunt animals for food.
"Villagers living around the park kill gorillas, elephants and other wildlife for bushmeat because inside of the villages, they don't have enough to eat," said John Kahekwa, a guide who has tracked the apes since 1983.

GUERRILLAS MAKE PARKS INACCESSIBLE

The dense canopy of forests of these remote game parks provides ideal bases for rebels and guerrillas to operate from.

In Rwanda, the army has succeeded in clearing most insurgents out of the volcanoes, pushing them deep inside jungles across the border in the Congo.

But Kahuzi-Biega, which has been closed to tourists since a rebellion broke out in eastern Congo in August 1998, has been much harder for authorities to control.

Nine-tenths of the park is a no-mans land, occupied by Rwandan Interahamwe militiamen and the Mai Mai, traditional warriors who believe magic water can protect them from bullets.

Villagers around the park have been terrorised by roaming bands of militia, who carry out frequent attacks to steal food, utensils, clothes and cattle before fleeing back into the bush.

Park rangers, too, have been hard-hit. Paid $20 a month by a German aid agency, they say militiamen brandishing machetes, spears and automatic weapons have stolen their uniforms, burned down their homes, and occupied park stations.

"Nobody can have tourism in the middle of a war, but when security returns, we hope the tourists will be back," Mankoto said.

(C) Reuters Limited 1999.