Virunga National Park is a national park in the Albertine Rift Valley in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was created in 1925. In elevation, it ranges from 680 m (2,230 ft) in the Semliki River valley to 5,109 m (16,762 ft) in the Rwenzori Mountains. From north to south it extends approximately 300 km (190 mi), largely along the international borders with Uganda and Rwanda in the east.[2] It covers an area of 8,090 km2 (3,120 sq mi).
There have been several deadly attacks in the park by rebel groups, and several park rangers have been killed.[8][9]
Politics
There have been plans to drill for oil in the Congo Basin since the 2000s. Preventing these plans the park gained further protection by an agreement sealed between DRCs president Felix Tshisekedi and Boris Johnson at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow.[10][11] To improve the country's economic situation the government undermined that very protection by auctioning oil exploration blocks inside the park by the end of July 2022. Tullow Oil Plc, TotalEnergies, ENI and China National Offshore Oil Corporation Ltd (CNOOC) were interested in acquiring drilling permissions.[12] Local and global groups, such as Greenpeace, are warning about the social and ecological impact of devastating the forest for oil production. Campaigners trying to create public awareness are threatened and intimidated on social media.[13]
History
In the early 1920s, several proponents of the European conservation movement championed the idea of creating a protected area in northeastern Belgian Congo, among them Victor van Straelen, Jean Massart and Jean-Marie Derscheid. When Albert National Park was established in April 1925 as the Congo's first national park, it was conceived as a science-oriented nature reserve with the aim of studying and preserving wildlife and so-called "primitive" hunter-gathererAfrican Pygmies. In 1926, Derscheid headed the first Belgian mission to map Albert National Park, which encompassed an area of 500 km2 (190 sq mi) around the extinct volcanoes Mount Karisimbi and Mount Mikeno. The protected area was extended in 1929 by Virunga National Park, which encompassed the Virunga Mountains, parts of the Rutshuru Territory, and the plains south of Lake Edward. Its initial size of 2,920.98 km2 (1,127.80 sq mi) was enlarged step by step in subsequent years.[14][15][16][17]Indigenous people lost their traditional land rights in this process, and were evicted from the protected area.[16][18] Between the late 1930s and 1955, an estimated 85,000 Rwandophone people were moved to nearby Masisi in North Kivu.[19]
In 1934, the Institut des Parcs Nationaux du Congo Belge was founded as the governing body for national parks in the Belgian Congo.[14]
Between the early 1930s and 1961, several expeditions to Albert National Park were carried out by Belgian scientists, the second headed by Gaston-François de Witte. They studied and collected zoological specimens of wildlife for the Musée Royal d'Histoire Naturelle de Belgique;[20][21] explored the ethnic groups in this area;[22] studied volcanic activity,[23] and fossils.[24]
In the late 1950s, Tutsi herders and their cattle entered the park, destroying natural habitat up to an altitude of 3,000 m (9,800 ft), which was thought to threaten the park's gorillas.[25]
Land laws were reformed in the 1960s after Belgian Congo became independent as the Republic of the Congo, and the land declared property of the state, much to the disadvantage of local people. Illegal hunting inside protected areas increased.[18] In 1969, the two parks were merged under the name Virunga National Park, which was declared a UNESCOWorld Heritage Site in 1979.[2]
In 2011, the British company Soco International was granted a concession for extracting crude oil in the surroundings of and in large parts of the national park. Government officials supported exploration activities by Soco International mission members, whereas park management opposed. In the course of increasing tensions, the park's chief warden, Emmanuel de Mérode, was assailed in April 2014.[26]
Following international protests, the company stopped exploring activities and consented to refrain from starting similar operations in the vicinity of World Heritage sites.[27][28][29][30]
By 2016, four hydropower dams were constructed that provide electricity to small businesses and benefit more than 200,000 rural people.[31]
Armed conflict
Since the early 1990s, the protected area was impacted by political turmoil in the African Great Lakes region. Following the Rwandan genocide, thousands of refugees fled to the Kivu region, and the presence of military increased. The First and Second Congo Wars further destabilised the region. Anti-poaching patrols inside the park were obstructed, and park personnel and wildlife were killed.[7] About 850,000 refugees lived around the national park in 1994. Up to 40,000 people entered the park daily in search of firewood and food, and deforested huge areas.[32] In 1994, Virunga National Park was entered into the List of World Heritage in Danger.[7]
In 2005, the European Commission (EC) recommended a public-private partnership between the country's government and the British non-governmental organisationAfrican Conservation Fund. The latter organisation is responsible for park management since 2010; about 80% of management costs are subsidised by the EC. Park protection efforts were militarised in the following years to deter armed rebel groups and poachers from operating inside the park.[26] Park personnel are given paramilitary training and high-quality weaponry, and operate together with the military and state security services.[34]
These tactics, criticised as "militarization of conservation", has been blamed for further violence and dispossession faced by local indigenous people. Communities, such as the Mbuti, which previously relied on the lands included in the park for food and shelter have been forced out, or risk being arrested or killed by armed park rangers.[35]
Increasing militarisation of nature conservation has been accused of fuelling armed mobilisation of militias. The inhabitants inside the national park, whether native or refugees, rely on farming, hunting, fishing, logging and producing charcoal for their livelihoods, all prohibited activities. The local community has no where else to turn for security, and relies on the protection of armed groups, for which fees are levied off the prohibited activities. According to a 2010 report by the United Nations Security Council, 80% of the charcoal consumed by the city of Goma is sourced from the park, representing an annual value of US$28–30 million. Both state security services and such groups also resort to armed robberies and kidnapping for income.[34]
Efforts at nature conservation have had contradictory effects, for example when farms were destroyed within Kibirizi, and soldiers and park guards were sent in to patrol, people migrated even further within the park to land controlled by the FDLR, where they could rent small plots of land. Clashes occurred in 2015 when a local Mai-Mai group in Binza (north Bwisha) attempted to take back control of region, with the objective of reinstalling fishing activities and allowing the population to return, killing a park guard and 11-15 soldiers.[34]
Five rangers were killed in August 2017 near Lake Edward in a militia attack. Five rangers and a driver were killed in April 2018.[36] Since beginning of the armed conflict, armed groups killed 175 park rangers until April 2018.[37] In May 2018, a ranger was killed when defending two tourists who were kidnapped.[8] They were subsequently released unharmed. As a consequence, the park remained closed to visitors from June 2018[38] until February 2019.[39]
In April 2020 at least 12 park rangers were killed by militia men attacking a civilian convoy.[40] Again in January 2021, armed men killed at least six rangers and wounded several others in an ambush in the national park.[41][42]
On 22 February 2021, Italy's ambassador to the DRC who was travelling with the World Food Programme about 15km north of Goma, Luca Attanasio, as well as Italian military police officer Vittorio Iacovacci and Congolese driver Moustapha Milambo, were killed in the gunfire when a militia that had kidnapped their convoy, and had brought them into the park, was met by park rangers who managed to free four people.[43]
Geography
Rwenzori Mountains
Hills around Lake Edward
Landscapes in Virunga National Park
Virunga National Park is located in the Congo − Nile watershed area. Its northern sector encompasses part of the Semliki River basin, as well as savanna and montane forest of the Albertine Rift.[44]
In altitude, this sector ranges from 680 m (2,230 ft) in the Puemba River valley to the highest peak of Mount Stanley at 5,109 m (16,762 ft) within 30 km (19 mi). The national park's central sector encompasses about two thirds of Lake Edward up to the international border with Uganda in the east. A narrow corridor of 3–5 km (1.9–3.1 mi) width along the lake's western bank connects the northern and southern sectors of the national park. The southern sector stretches to the shores of Lake Kivu and encompasses Nyamulagira, Nyiragongo and Mikeno volcanoes with montane forests on their slopes.[2]
The climate in the Albertine Rift is influenced by the movement of the Intertropical Convergence Zone and the El Niño–Southern Oscillation. March to mid May and September to November are the main rainy seasons.[46]
Mean monthly rainfall in the savanna around Lake Edward is 30–40 mm (1.2–1.6 in); this is the driest part of the landscape. The northern sector receives a monthly mean precipitation of up to 220 mm (8.7 in), and the southern sector of up to 160 mm (6.3 in).[45]
Average temperatures in lower altitudes vary from 23–28 °C (73–82 °F), and in higher altitudes from 16–24 °C (61–75 °F), rarely dropping below 14 °C (57 °F).[15]
The montane forest between 1,800 and 2,800 m (5,900 and 9,200 ft) in the southern sector is dominated by Ficalhoa laurifolia and Podocarpus milanjianus with up to 25 m (82 ft) high trees. African alpine bamboo (Yushania alpina) grows at altitudes of 2,300–2,600 m (7,500–8,500 ft). The vegetation above 2,600 m (8,500 ft) is subalpine with foremost African redwood (Hagenia abyssinica) growing up to 3,000 m (9,800 ft). Tree heath (Erica arborea), heather and mosses cover humid slopes up to 3,700 m (12,100 ft) elevation. Senecio and Lobelia species grow on vast clearings and attain heights of up to 8 m (26 ft).[15]
The Semliki River provides habitat for Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus). Several were observed at the northern shore of Lake Edwards in 1988 for the first time.[56]
The documentary Virunga documents the work of Virunga National Park rangers and the activities of British oil company Soco International within the park.[61][62]Ndakasi, a gorilla from the park, was featured in a few television series and movies, including the Netflix documentary.[63]
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^ abcdefCrawford, A. & Bernstein, J. (2008). MEAs, Conservation and Conflict – A case study of Virunga National Park, DRC. Geneva: International Institute for Sustainable Development.
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