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Army pulls out of Congo gorilla reserve
More than 6,000 people leave key mountain gorilla habitat in rare success for Congo's wildlife.

Conservationists have scored a rare success for Democratic Republic of Congo's gorillas after striking a deal with army troops to pull out of a key forest reserve.
    
More than 1,000 soldiers and their 5,000 family members were trucked out of the Virunga National Park, Africa's oldest game reserve and a World Heritage Site, leaving huge new areas empty for mountain gorillas.

The park, in Congo's far east, forms part of a trans-border protected area also in Uganda and Rwanda, which together is home to half of the world's last remaining 700 mountain gorillas.

But much of their forested habitat in Congo has been over-run with armed groups, including the national army, which are still fighting an ongoing civil war despite a supposed peace deal in 2003.

The troop pull-out was negotiated by Emmanuel de Merode, the 38-year-old Belgian director of Virunga National Park, and General Vainqueur Mayala, commander of the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC) in the area.

"De-militarising Virunga National Park remains our greatest and most difficult challenge," said Mr de Merode.

"The Congolese National Army has taken the first step, which represents a major breakthrough at a time when the threats to the park have never been greater."

Ten mountain gorillas were slaughtered last year, apparently by charcoal traders who chop down trees inside the park to burn for fuel to sell to the area's growing human population.

Hippo numbers on nearby Lake Edward plummeted 95 per cent in 2007 as rebels butchered hundreds for their meat.

There are still huge challenges despite the army redeployment, which was funded with a £5,000 grant from the World Wildlife Fund to pay for lorries and fuel to move the troops.

Rebel armies have not signed up to the deal to withdraw their estimated 3,000 fighters from Virunga, meaning that ranger patrols to track and monitor the gorilla families are still largely impossible at present.

More than 120 rangers have lost their lives as fighting has raged into the Virunga National Park over the last decade.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk
 

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