Lessons of Dian Fossey and Establishment of POPOF-Japan

The 20th anniversary of Dian Fossey's death was on 26 December 2005. We should take this opportunity to reconsider her work and the conservation of gorillas. I worked on mountain gorillas at the Karisoke Research Center in 1981 and 1982 under her supervision after my preliminary survey of eastern lowland gorillas at Kahuzi in 1978.
I learned many things from Dian. Her methods of habituating gorillas were different from those I had learned for habituating Japanese macaques: I had to immerse myself in the gorillas' behaviours, communicating with them in their manner. She made it very clear that both continuous conservation efforts and long-term studies were vital to supporting a healthy population of gorillas. But her murder in 1985 also taught me the importance of harmonious relationships with the local human community; although it was the most effective way to save gorillas at that time, her "active conservation" provoked the hostility of local people.
When I resumed my field work on wild gorillas in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1986, I tried to extend my experience and the lessons I had learned at Karisoke to the new study sites. I implemented two policies in my research project: first, to conduct long-term studies with Congolese scientists, and secondly to raise the awareness of local people of the need to conserve gorillas and their natural habitats. Fortunately, I became associated with two gifted colleagues, Mwanza Ndunda and A. Kanyunyi Basabose, who worked with me as Congolese scientists at Kahuzi.
John Kahekwa established an NGO called POPOF (Pole Pole Foundation), consisting of people living near the park in 1992. He worked as a gorilla tourism guide in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park and was a core member of the local NGO. I joined POPOF as an external adviser from the beginning. I thought that the most important requirement for research on gorillas and thus their conservation was to work with local people, since the major obstacle to achieving conservation was conflict: conflict between gorillas and humans, and conflict between groups of people in the struggles for life. POPOF aimed to mitigate such conflicts and to promote the peaceful coexistence of people and gorillas.
Gorilla tourism at Kahuzi-Biega National Park achieved great success in generating significant revenues (from 1989 to 1993 about US$ 210,000 per year, see Butynski & Kalina 1998); but after the outbreak of riots in Kinshasa, the number of tourists and the revenue from tourism declined drastically, and starvation, the proliferation of small arms, and the collapse of park protection during the civil war in 1996 and 1998 all contributed to the increase in hunting for bushmeat (Yamagiwa 2003). In 1999, gorilla meat was on sale at US cents 25 per kg (equivalent to half the price of beef) in several local markets surrounding the park.
The incentive to hunt gorillas in the park may have grown gradually with the collapse of the Mobutu regime in Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo), the influxes of refugees from neighboring countries, and the two subsequent civil wars. The resentment felt by local people toward the park and its authorities may have contributed to their willingness to engage in illegal exploitation of wildlife resources within the park, thereby complicating conservation efforts.
For many locals, the park was a source of resentment and conflict (Basabose 2001). In creating the park in 1970, the national government had forced many local villagers to abandon their lands and to refrain from using the new reserve's natural resources. Local villages were ordered to absorb the people who were evicted from the new reserve, and they were prohibited from shooting the elephants that frequently raided their crops. Rapid population growth in the area helped to sharpen the conflicts between the traditional village residents and the immigrants.
After the outbreak of the first war, most foreign businesses evacuated the country, and foreign aid and cooperation were suspended. Hospitals and clinics faced severe shortages of medicines and supplies. The payment of salaries to civil servants was stopped or delayed for long periods. To keep schools and colleges open, parents of students had to organize themselves to pay the wages of teachers. These conditions have forced people to exploit natural resources and to seek bushmeat in the park. After the abrupt increase in the price of coltan (columbium tantalite) in 2000 (from US$ 40 to US$ 500 per pound), thousands of miners entered the park to mine it, and hunting has significantly increased to support these mining camps (Hayes 2002).
POPOF tried to mitigate the increased conflicts between the local people and the park authorities. A tree nursery, a handicraft center and a school for women and children were established for community-based conservation education. POPOF played an important role in the spread of conservation knowledge and in the reduction of poaching during the war.
I established POPOF-Japan (a branch office in Japan) in 1994 to support the activities of POPOF in Kahuzi. Although many people including university students, school teachers, artists and zoo keepers joined our voluntary activities, the Japanese Government has warned us against visiting Congo, due to political instability and insecurity. Instead of working with POPOF at Kahuzi, we organized exhibitions to introduce POPOF activities in Japan and sold POPOF goods such as post cards, wood carvings and pendants made by hands of POPOF members.
We also invited John Kahekwa and David Bisimwa, an artist of POPOF, to Japan in 2001, where they participated in several conferences and symposia on conservation of natural environments and eco-tourism. They introduced POPOF and discussed community-based conservation in the World Heritage Sites. In Yakushima, which was added to the list of World Heritage areas in 1993, many eco-tourism guides listened to the story of the Kahuzi gorillas and discussed the importance of environmental education and tourism. David and I made a picture book with a story of human children and juvenile gorillas in the forest of Kahuzi for Japanese children. We are planning to translate it into the Swahili language for children living at Kahuzi in the future.
The recent negotiations among the major stakeholders seem to have established a lasting peace in Congo, but the end of the war does not mean the end of the problems facing conservation efforts. So far, most of the concessions outside of the protected areas have fallen into the hands of foreign logging companies; the termination of war may have actually increased logging and promoted the bushmeat trade on a wider scale. The conservation agencies need to establish mutually beneficial relationships with logging companies and local people through dissemination of conservation knowledge and the revival of relationships of trust.
The bushmeat crisis will drastically reduce biodiversity and deprive the tropical forests in Central Africa of its fauna. Bushmeat is, however, a major dietary component of people in rural areas, and the bushmeat trade constitutes a large part of family income for both rural and urban households. Until alternative food resources are supplied as affordable and palatable protein substitutes, the bushmeat trade will not significantly decline. Logging companies, mining companies, government agencies, conservation organizations and foreign donors should collaborate to increase employment and to raise awareness of the bushmeat crisis in order to promote sustainable use of natural resources in both urban and rural areas. A variety of measures needs to be applied, using both top-down and bottom-up approaches.
It is important to increase the participation of rural populations in forest conservation and management. This may activate local economies and act as a brake on the migration of people and their heavy reliance on bushmeat. Products and profits resulting from forest management should belong to local communities. A considerable portion of park revenues generated by gorilla tourism should be used for development activities in communities near the park.
Although eco-tourism is a promising method for sustainable use of natural resources in the protected area, habituation of great apes may increase the risk of disease transmission from human to apes and may weaken the viability of their population (Woodford et al. 2002). Special precautions and strict regulations are needed in promoting eco-tourism of the great apes in cooperation with local communities. The genetic proximity of non-human primates to humans means that transmission of animal-borne diseases to humans is also becoming a great risk when a number of primates are put on sale. Along with the efforts to diminish the bushmeat trade, an interdisciplinary study is urgently needed to examine the process and the possibility of disease transmission.
The role of local NGOs is particularly important for widespread awareness-raising and conservation education as a bottom-up approach. During the war, national institutions and the effects of legislation were weakened, and local people have increasingly made decisions affecting natural resources according to their personal and local interests. POPOF took a role in reinforcing conservation knowledge among local people and providing alternatives to destructive activities. None of the conservation measures taken will be successful without the interest and support of the local people. Foreign countries and international NGOs must support them in their efforts to save people and endangered wildlife from the ravages of war.

Juichi Yamagiwa

Other contributions:

Martha Robbins

James Byamukama and Stephen Asuma

Raymond Corbey

Colin Groves

Richard Johnstone-Scott

Kelly Stewart

Overview
 

References
Basabose, A. K. (2001) Causes of poaching, consequences, proposed solutions and agencies that could implement them. Gorilla Journal 22: 6-8
Butynski, T. M. & Kalina, J. (1998) Gorilla tourism: a critical look. Pp. 294-313 in: Milner-Gulland, E. J. & Mace, R. (eds.) Conservation of Biological Resources. Oxford: Blackwell Science Ltd, Oxford
Hayes, K. (2002) Update on coltan mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Oryx 36: 12-13
Woodford, M. H., Butynski, T. M. & Karesh, W. B. (2002) Habituating the great apes: the disease risks. Oryx 36: 153-160
Yamagiwa, J. (2003) Bush-meat poaching and the conservation crisis in Kahuzi-Biega National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo. Journal of Sustainable Forestry 16: 115-135

Prof. Dr. Juichi Yamagiwa has been involved in field work on eastern gorillas since 1978, mainly at Kahuzi-Biega. He promoted a cooperative research project on gorillas and chimpanzees at the Tshibati area of Kahuzi-Biega with CRSN (Centre de Recherche en Sciences Naturelles) and ICCN.
 

Gorillas in general - overview

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