Update on the situation in Virunga National Park
from project leader Alison Mollon

(20 November 2012): Today Goma the provincial capital of the region has fallen into the hands of the M23 rebel group and the stability of the region, and possibly even the country is uncertain. I and some of my team are currently camped out in a UN base just north of Rumangabo, having been caught in between the latest fighting. We came up to Rumangabo last week to finalise some details before going ahead with building three new schools and three water tanks...

Virunga National Park, DRC: On Sunday 8th July, the decision was taken to evacuate the rangers’ families and most of the ICCN rangers from their base at Rumangabo. Of course to evacuate is one thing, where to go is another. In 2008 under similar conditions, FZS was able to assist in setting up a camp to house the rangers and families on the outskirts of Goma. Four years on we find ourselves in a similar situation, and although we are pleased that we can help in times such as these, we would prefer that it was unnecessary.

The decision to...

The word habituation can seem like somewhat of a technical word, but the definition simply put, is getting animals used to being around people. Our chimpanzees in Tongo have been hunted for the past two decades, making the habituation process quite difficult. “At the beginning of the habituation process, they were so scared of us. When they saw us they would run away as fast as they could without making any noise or without communicating with each other “, explains Alexis Mutakirwa , our Chimpanzee Habituation Officer. “All they wanted was to get away from us.”

I left their camp touched by their singing, their dances, but above all, I left feeling a sense of urgency; these forgotten people of North Kivu will have to see better days. I turned towards my colleague, Joseph, and in broken French I asked him how soon we could provide them with what they had asked for. Their request was minimal: all they asked for were blankets and kitchen pots.

We went back to our car and on the way back to our camp in Rumangabo I started to think. They tell me that pygmies...

Alan Deverell is the new Project Leader for Upemba National Park - one of the most logistically challenging and isolated parks in DRC. Radu Dumitrascu joins us for two years and heads up FZS DRC's communications programme and Gabriel Chapman joins us for a year as our Communications Officer in Upemba. Vincent Ngeno is joining the team as DRC Programme Pilot. Vincent will fly the old trusted Cessna 206 that has seen been doing long service in the old days in Garamba and Serengeti.

We are very happy to welcome Alan, Radu, Gabriel and Vincent to the FZS team in...

Blog from Anita Keij, our Admin/Finance consultant for the Virunga project!

Working with the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is definitely not a predictable Monday to Friday, nine-to-five job! We start earlier and finish later than that. Colleagues are extremely passionate about their work and dedicated to the projects. Circumstances are challenging, things don’t always work that efficiently and on any given day, anything can happen. Security in the DRC is also a real issue. Despite all this,...

During the first days of this year I had the privilege to once again visit an area which couldn’t be more contradictive: It combines tragedy, destruction, endless suffering, war and genocide, ecological and economical catastrophes with a globally unique landscape of mind blowing beauty, of volcanoes offering breath taking views into the inner part of the earth, with a lake of liquid stones, biodiversity rich forests and wetlands, scattered villages surrounded by flowering rich fields, inhabited by a tremendous variety of ethnics, expressed in a diversity of languages...

It’s a beautiful day in Virunga National Park. The two active volcanoes in the park, Nyiragongo and Nyamulagira are bubbling away as usual, and - as we experience more rainfall than usual these years - the marshlands are full of water.

There is no doubt why this area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s rich in geology and boasts more biodiversity than any other protected area on the continent of Africa. Not only is the Park home to several rare species such as mountain gorillas, okapi, and over 700 species of birds…it is also home to an unknown number of...

TONGO forest, on the 18th of November 2009

I’m Lucy the FZS Technical Advisor for the Virunga National Park in Eastern DR Congo. Alexis, is the chimp habituation officer for FZS, and our oldest staff with the Virunga project. He is in the field leading the team of one of our most exciting projects in Virunga: the re-start of a Chimp habituation project in a little primary forest block of 10km² called TONGO, where there is an estimated 30 chimps (according to the last census in 2005). You can also find black and white colobus, Cercopithecus mitis and black...

Our FZS staff in the Congo now has some female support. Since June Lucy Fauveau is working with the team as the Technical Advisor for Virunga National Park Conservation Project as we are extending our Virunga Project into a wider Congo Programme.

Lucy’s background is on the development and humanitarian side. Amongst other things, she was supporting the management of refugee camps in Chad. She is French but grew up in Asia where both parents were carrying out humanitarian work for the United Nations. She went to school in Singapore and then attended the School of...

On the 11th March 2009, Serge Ukundji, FZS logistician based in the Virunga National Park, received a national award for bravery for his support to ICCN in their efforts to protect the park's forests from the devastating trade in illegal charcoal.

The Abraham Award for Nature Conservation is awarded annually for those individuals who have gone above and beyond the call of duty to protect Congo's national parks, and Serge was one of five recipients from Virunga National Park to receive the reward. Serge had his life threatened on several...

Nearly the entire province is under rebel control and will probably remain so until the government agrees to negotiate with them and have tackled the problem of the FDLR, an armed group responsible for the 1994 Rwandan Genocide who have sought refuge in DRC.

Meanwhile, the ICCN has managed to open up dialogue with the rebels who now control much of the park and has managed to negotiate the return of 120 rangers to Rumangabo Park Headquarters. They are currently negotiating the possibility of carrying out a census in order to establish what impact the recent...

The CNDP rebels loyal to dissident General Laurent Nkunda have continued to enlarge the area under their control while the Congolese army have suffered defeat after defeat.

The entire central sector of the park is now under CNDP control following heavy fighting a few days ago, which broke out as Serge from the Frankfurt Zoological Society was helping evacuate rangers and their families from Rwindi Park Station. They had been trapped there without food for four days and the situation was getting desperate. Shortly after Serge arrived with the UN escort, renewed...

Virunga National Park, where FZS is working to protect the critically
endangered mountain gorillas, is threatened with imminent destruction as a
result of extremely violent combat between government forces and rebels
loyal to the dissident general Laurent Nkunda. The fighting has created
one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in recent history, and Park
Rangers and their families are among the victims.

On Sunday 26th October, Virunga National Park's headquarters suffered a
violent attack by CNDP rebels. This marked the...