I feel like I am traveling to Africa. Right. I know. I live in Africa. But traveling to the Democratic Republic of Congo is different. Rain gear, boots, water purification tablets, a hard suit case that locks, strong anti-biotics, malaria pills…
DRC. Congo. Probably most well-known from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The Dark Continent. In the late 1800’s King Leopold of Belgium, thirsty for his own colony, took control of much of the country with the early assistance of the famous explorer Henry Morton Stanley. It was not the Government of Belgium who colonized DRC, but Leopold himself. A long and fascinating story, but to cut it short, he set up a company that ran the country under the guise of humanitarian assistance for the natives and the end of slavery. In sum, Leopold, while never stepping foot in the country, was extracting the resources of DRC while using the natives as free labor. When rubber hit the markets as a result of the need of tires in Europe and America, Leopold hit the jack pot. Forcing natives to collect rubber through force, killings, a famous whip made of hippo hyde, kidnappings of family members, and the signature cutting off of hands, the rubber frenzy became known as one of the greatest humanitarian atrocities of all time. All the while, because of the remoteness of DRC, people and governments in Europe and the USA supported Leopold as they were unaware of what was happening. Through exposure over the years from explorers and missionaries, the facts finally emerged in the Western World and eventually Leopold sold, yes, sold, his business to the Belgium Government keeping the profits from his exploitation. Congo has since been riddled with challenges and wars. A long tenure of Mobuto (supported by the USA because he was not aligning himself with the Russians and at the time the Cold War was being fought across Africa) had dire consequences across Congo and the following of the current leader Kabila has not resulted in great change. While other countries in Africa have made progress, DRC has gone back in time. Author Tim Butcher comments that nowhere else in the world has infant mortality been significantly higher in 2010 than it was in 1960.
The airport in Kinshasa is a mustard yellow huge cement building. Expecting total mayhem I was surprised how orderly things were. Supposedly changes made in the last year. We were met by a service company that escorted us to a lounge, while they sorted out luggage, payment for entering the country, stamps etc… the usual procedures when entering a country like DRC.
Kinshasa is hard to describe. It sits on the Congo River and looks run down, yet there is an 8 lane highway cutting though town, but on the side streets the pot holes are so large they will swallow your car. Like most African cities, there is the area of town with the embassies, old colonial houses and homes for the wealthy; then the run down areas where people live in squalor. Busy. Dirty. Loads of people—sidewalks filled, as if there is a major event everyone is trying to get to. Chaotic. Colorful. A school bus has a flat tire and is parked across, literally, across the road, so nobody can pass. Music. It’s an expensive city. One night we stayed that the Membling Hotel—a standard, but nice, clean hotel with water and electricity. You pay $280 for the night. Another $28 for breakfast. With little choices, cities like Kinshasa can get away with charging such crazy prices. The city sits on the Congo River, with Congo Brazzaville across the way.
From Kinshasa our projects are 3 hours by plane –those are the ones we can get to by plane. Our main project, the Lomako Faunal Reserve, takes 3 hours by plane from Kinshasa and then 18 hours by boat. This puts in perspective how challenging this landscape is to work in, and yet, this area we have had great success, mainly due to a dedicated Director who has worked in Congo for the past 15 years. Our focus here is to work with local communities to protect wildlife and habitat and to provide economic incentives. Like all of our projects, it’s really establishing viable economic alternatives, because without that, we do not have a chance. Why will someone stopping killing monkeys for bushmeat if they have no alternatives? Why will someone stop slashing and burning the forest if they have no alternative?
Here in the Congo our focal species is the bonobo, a great ape that only lives in DRC. It looks somewhat similar to a chimp, but less hairy, with a bare face and easily walks on two legs. Like most of the great apes, the bonobo is threatened. The landscape is vast tropical forest with winding rivers.
We chartered a 16-seat Czech plane and flew north along the Congo River and then east to a town called Basankusu. Parts of the Congo River are so big you feel like you are flying over huge lakes and it truly makes you appreciate the stories of the early explorers. Basankusu is a key area from an operational perspective because this is where the Lopori and Maringa Rivers meet, and again, access into the interior thick tropical forest is only through rivers. We have five offices in DRC simply because of the logistical issues.
It is a small town. Kids play football in the grassy square, women walk with sticks on their back. Dirt roads. Hot. We stay at a dive hotel, if you can call it a hotel, basically a house with guest rooms. A bed with a mosquito net that has more holes that Swiss cheese. I have been very spoiled staying at some amazing places in Africa. This is payback time for all those lovely stays.
In the morning, we woke early and jumped in a dug-out canoe—it’s about 12 meters long and wooden, carved out of a large tree. We sit in nice wooden garden chairs and travel up the Lopori River with an outboard engine. We pass villages that are carved out of the thick rain forest. River life is busy with kids traveling to school via canoe, fisherman and wooden rafts with structures—people traveling for weeks to get to a town to sell agricultural produce. We sample some palm wine that some locals have collected from the trees.
Our aim is to see the bonobo. Twelve of them have been reintroduced by a group dedicated to rescuing bonobo orphans and reintroducing them into the wild. Looking at this thick forest I am not getting my hopes up for finding this elusive ape, but secretly praying we find them. A staff person from the reintroduction project travels with us in the boat, a young, Congolese woman dedicated to this ape. I am always impressed, especially here in Africa, when I see women in the conservation field and this woman is impressive. She is living in the middle of nowhere, working to help protect this species. People on the river tell us they have heard the bonobos, we follow their advice and have the great fortune of seeing these awesome apes. Its sounds corny, but you look in the eyes of the apes and your heart melts. Their hands our just like ours, and seeing the bonobos walk on two legs and jump around playing, preening each other is a true delight. This is an amazing story of recovery, returning the bonobo to the wild. A sign of hope for this species. We are exploring the idea of creating a tourism market around this landscape, a way to help boost the income of these communities.
Had we carried on 18 hours in the canoe, we would have reached our research site in the Lomako Forest Reserve. The declaration of the reserve was the result of years of effort, and currently we host a bonobo researcher who is helping us understand more about this unique ape and have trained a team of rangers who monitor the reserve. With time constrains we are unable to make the journey to Lomako—next trip!
We return to shore and head to the village market for coffee. I love visiting local markets as it gives you a real feel for the people and what’s happening in a town. You can get anything you need in this market—fish, vegetables, clothing, suitcases, nail polish…you name it, they’ve got it. One area of the market is bush meat including stacks of monkeys. Eating monkey and other bushmeat is a delicacy and a major problem. The going rate for a monkey is $15, but that is for us, white people. The price could be bargained down.
Our next destination was further into the forest, a small town called Djolu. Look at a map of Africa and Djolu looks like it is smack dab in the middle of the continent. The District Commissioner from Basankusu was hitching a ride on our plane (planes do not frequent these places, nor do cars for that matter—no roads). When we arrived at the airport (a small one room building) there were swarms of people. A marching band was playing. Army and police lined up on the runway and everyone waiting for the District Commissioner to arrive, he of course had to arrive last. A bugle played when he arrived, people stood, ladies hollered in joy and the DC (wearing a Mobutu like leopard fur hat and sash, carrying a whisk made of animal hair) greeted the line of officers and boarded the plane. Such respect for government officials is common. These procedures are normal in meetings etc…so it makes things quite complicated. For example, you cannot start a meeting if a senior government official is due to arrive, as they are the ones who are supposed to formally open a meeting.
Flying into Djolu the forest changes from an intact carpet of tropical forest to a patchwork of burns, cuts, and forest. You can see fire and smoke and villages in the middle of the forest. The threat in this area is slash and burn techniques that clear forest for agricultural development.
When we land, on a grassy strip, there are hundreds of people from the village who swarm the plane. The plane gets stuck in the sand, one wheel, so we have to put bamboo sticks under the wheel and we eventually get out.
Our office is 4k from the airstrip so we jump on the back of motor bikes to get to our office. Riding a motor bike in these little towns is like having a limo. They are the best way to get around on the narrow, sandy trails, but very few have them. We have about 12 staff in this office, including an attorney, a mapping specialist, a community officer, drivers, financial assistant etc… The office has no phone connection but we have internet through a satellite, and it’s actually quite good. In the afternoon we visit a women’s project that we are helping with improved agricultural techniques. They welcome us with amazing song and dance and walk us through their program.
The next morning we travel 20 km east via motor bike, a 45 minute ride. The bikes all have drivers and so I am sitting on the back holding on for dear life. There is no other way to get around. We travel along a single track trail through the thick forest to get to an area that we have been working on a zoning project. I firmly grip the bike as we wind through the forest, crossing thick sandy areas, mud flats, and rickety bridges. At times I just close my eyes, hoping we do not crash and burn. Passing through tiny villages, kids come screaming and jumping in delight, and people wave. They are poor, remote, without power, sanitation.
Firmly believing that with good planning, the forest can be protected and community livelihoods improved, we are working with local communities on a zoning plan. The community helps to map agricultural zones and in exchange for assistance with agricultural development and intensification, they agree to stop farming in the forest interior, stop the slash and burn. MOUs are signed, GPS points taken, maps produced, agricultural assistance provided and the project is rolled out. We meet with the first village who signed the MOU and listen to how they view the program. Our target is to expand the program to cover a much larger area and eventually help them generate more income through the sale of carbon credits and better linkage to markets.
One of the greatest challenges for all these villages, and many of the villages we work with across Africa, is access to markets. Take for example this village we are meeting with, they are 20 km from the main town, and even then to get to a larger market it’s a one and a half hour plane ride (which does not come to this village) or a one month journey by boat, assuming you have the boat and ability to get there and keep the produce fresh. We have a boat—a barge—and we provide access to the market twice a year (in tandem with the food production cycles.) We bring traders from Kinshasa, up river, they buy the products from the communities with whom we work and then return to Kinshasa to sell the produce. It’s a fairly straight forward concept, we provide access to the market, communities produce food in a conservation friendly and sustainable manner, we get them higher prices in the Kinshasa market, but of course like most projects in Africa, it is riddled with complexities. For example, river levels have to be right, on the last trip the boat got stuck in the sand….but such is work in Africa.
There are always two ways to look at things, and DRC is no different. After years of war, the country has suffered immensely. Development is 50 years behind Kenya, infrastructure limited, education levels low and the ability to operate programs severely challenging. People say “I wonder what the potential for DRC is?” and the response “Just look back 50 years.” However, DRC with its vast resources has a chance to get it right. Again, with proper planning, we hope that in 50 years, DRC be a place where its people, land, forest and wildlife thrive.
