Bonn,
19 September - In the last few weeks, millions
of people around the world discovered with horror the
gruesome pictures of slaughtered mountain gorillas in
eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in the
Virungas National Park. More than nine mountain gorillas
have been killed so far. The carcasses were simply abandoned
where they were slaughtered. They were not killed for
bushmeat, as it is often the case for many of the great
apes in other parts of their range.
Indeed, contact with the human world is deadly dangerous.
And particularly so in the Virungas Mountains, one of
the most beautiful sites on earth, but also a backcloth
to an ongoing bloody civil conflict.
Gorillas face threats from peacetime human activities
as well as wars. New settlements, expanding agricultural
areas, illegal logging, mining and the bushmeat trade
have all contributed to the latest listing of all gorilla
taxa as critically endangered under the IUCN Red List
published earlier this month. One of the underlying causes
behind the problems in the Virungas is the need for charcoal.
Charcoal is by far the most popular source of household
energy in Africa. With the recent human population movements
in eastern DRC and Rwanda (after the 1994 war), and current
demographic increase, the demand for charcoal in the Great
Lakes Region has increased sharply. Making charcoal in
current conditions usually involves depleting forests,
destroying habitats, and generally diminishing ecosystem
services while contributing seriously to extra emissions
of carbon dioxide. The struggle for the control of the
valuable charcoal itself fuels civil conflicts, and thus
provides a “double whammy” for the gorillas
– depleted forests and war.
With these problems in mind, as well as the need to contribute
to poverty alleviation and sustainable development for
the local populations whose incomes are often based on
unsustainable use of wildlife, CMS, the Convention on
Migratory Species, has developed, at the Range States’
request, an international Agreement on Gorillas. This
agreement, to be signed by the relevant African Range
States and other interested states or parties, will require
joint activities, programmes and projects to be undertaken
by the Convention and the Range States to conserve existing
populations of gorillas.
CMS is organizing, together with the government of France,
GRASP and other partners, a first negotiation meeting
of the Ngagi Gorilla Agreement in Paris (22-24 October
2007). CMS is inviting other partners to join in this
conservation endeavor, trying to save our close, gentle
cousins.
Executive Secretary of CMS Robert Hepworth commented
“The GRASP Partnership provides the framework to
conserve gorillas and other great apes. CMS, as a GRASP
partner, can now add value through the creation of a binding
Agreement or “mini-treaty” under the Convention
to provide permanent legal protection for gorillas throughout
their range states. Then the local human populations can
find new ways to profit from the presence of these remarkable
animals though high-income ecotourism, as we have seen
most notably in Rwanda and Uganda. This is an unparalleled
opportunity to send a signal that we will safeguard priceless
wildlife resources – one of our closest primate
relatives is under a murderous threat which collective
action can and must avert. A CMS treaty for gorillas will
set a standard for the future. CMS calls on all countries
to support it financially as well as politically. We can
then take a real step towards meeting the biodiversity
targets for 2010 that the world’s governments agreed
five years ago”.
If the 10 range states can reach agreement in Paris,
the Agreement will be enter into force next year, and
be a vital tool for the Range states and GRASP in stimulating
conservation, capacity-building and confidence raising
measures to facilitate the protection of gorillas, their
ecosystems (including World Heritage Sites) and dependent
human populations.
In August 2007, UNESCO, UNEP and IUCN undertook a mission
to assess the crisis in the Virunga National Park, Africa’s
oldest park, and one of five World Heritage sites in this
vast country. On Monday 17 September, UNEP has fielded
another mission to Kinshasa and Eastern Congo to explore
ways to improve the management of natural resources and
consider the need for post conflict assessment and intervention.
UNEP, UNESCO and the GRASP partnership they lead are
key partners to this initiative. GRASP Co-ordinator Melanie
Virtue of UNEP said: “The proposed Gorilla Agreement
will complement the other activities being undertaken
by UNEP and UNESCO regarding the plight of the gorillas,
other wildlife, fragile ecosystems and vulnerable human
populations in the Congo Basin."
A series of other meetings on primates is taking place
in Paris during the week of 22 – 26 October 2007.
For more information and to join the initiative please
contact:
UNEP/CMS Secretariat
Tel. (+49) 228 815 2402
See also : http://www.naturalsciences.be/science/projects/gorilla
http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=517&ArticleID=5670&l=en
