News Comes
As Historic Gorilla Agreement Between Ten
Nations Comes Into Effect
Bonn/Nairobi, 29 May 2008 - The Spanish
government has contributed USD 368,000 to
a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
led initiative to help protect gorillas,
chimpanzees and their habitats in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The news comes as the
country continues to face one of the greatest
environmental challenge in Africa today.
The last few years have seen a rise in the
killing of rare wildlife and environmental
destruction as the region is caught in the
crossfire of conflict.
As serious instability
continues to plague eastern Congo, 500,000
Internally Displaced People (IDPs) have
spread across the region and rebel groups
have occupied large swaths of the national
parks and important forest ecosystems.
The Spanish funds will
be channeled through the Great Apes Survival
Partnership (GRASP) as part of UNEP's programme
to help improve the conservation of endangered
and economically important animals and ecosystems
there as requested by the DRC government.
UNEP is assisting the
national authorities in drafting and developing
national environmental laws, facilitating
dialogue in the region and helping boost
cooperation to tackle the country's environmental
challenges.
Meanwhile the first
international agreement for the conservation
of gorillas enters into force on 1st June,
offering hope for a new era of stronger
protection for the apes. The agreement was
concluded among the ten gorilla range states
in Paris in October 2007, under the auspices
of the Convention on the Conservation of
Migratory Species (CMS).
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary
General and UNEP Executive Director, said:
"The funding by the Government of Spain
is a welcome development in this troubled
country and region. At risk are the nature-based
assets upon which many of the people of
the DRC rely for livelihoods".
"Meanwhile comprehensive
environmental laws are urgently needed to
ensure that these natural resources are
harvested by international companies in
ways that will guarantee their integrity
and productivity for years and decades to
come. The German government is also stepping
up funding to the DRC under its new Life
Web initiative. I would urge other countries
to also join hands with the people and biodiversity
of this key African country," he said.
The announcement of
the new Spanish funding comes as 191 countries
gather in Bonn for a key meeting on biodiversity
this week in a bid to agree on ways to significantly
reduce biodiversity loss by 2010.
The forests of DRC,
which cover one million square kilometers,
are a treasure trove for biodiversity. They
house some of the world's rarest and most
remarkable species, including the bonobo
(the closest living relative of the human
species) and the okapi (a unique forest
giraffe) as well as the rare mountain gorilla.
More than half of the 720 mountain gorillas
left in the world live in Eastern DRC.
But this biodiversity
is under threat as a result of the decades
of instability which has racked the country.
The instability has taken a severe toll
on the region's natural resources and wildlife,
and the situation has been exacerbated by
factors including poor capacity to enforce
existing wildlife laws; widespread poaching;
and rapidly increasing mining activities
and opening up of forests which are facilitating
access to previously remote forest areas.
In 2007, seven of the
highly endangered mountain gorillas were
killed in eastern DRC. Virunga National
Park, which is at the heart of the current
tensions and conflicts, has also seen its
hippo population drop from an estimated
29,000 to a herd of just a few hundred.
Elephants are also under
threat: new figures from the Convention
on International Trade in endangered Species
of wild fauna and flora (CITES) show alarming
levels of poaching in Central Africa - in
and around eastern DRC.
CITES has found that
Central Africa has much higher levels of
illegal killings of elephants than any other
part of the continent: 73% of dead elephants
in the region have been found to have been
killed illegally, compared to 17% in Southern
Africa, 31% in West Africa and 44% in Eastern
Africa. In April 2008 alone, fourteen elephants
were killed in Virunga National Park.
UNEP is carrying out
a wide-ranging strategy to help DRC's government
to tackle this enormous challenge. UNEP
is assisting the government with the environmental
framework law and is facilitating stakeholder
dialogue in the transboundary Virunga region.
The organization is
also assessing possibilities for boosting
cooperation between the DRC, Rwanda and
Uganda to stem illegal flows of natural
resources such as charcoal and transboundary
exploitation of oil and methane gas. In
addition, UNEP is addressing the issue of
the IDP camps which are heavily dependent
on forests in the Virunga National Park
for fuelwood and charcoal.
Once the security situation
improves in eastern DRC, UNEP also plans
to undertake a post-conflict environmental
assessment in the area. In addition, UNEP
and UNESCO have secured a commitment from
the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) to carry
out joint patrols with park rangers of the
Congolese Institute for the Conservation
of Nature (ICCN) when the situation is more
stable.
Other international
partners are also working with UNEP and
the DRC government to help boost protection
for eastern DRC's critically-important ecosystem
and endangered species. UNESCO's World Heritage
Centre, with the assistance of MONUC, is
currently facilitating a dialogue between
ICCN and representatives of the armed groups
present in Virunga National Park. One of
the objectives is to convince the armed
groups to allow ICCN to resume patrolling
of the park, in particular the sector inhabited
by the endangered mountain gorilla which
is currently controlled by armed groups.
CITES is also collaborating
with the World Heritage Convention in addressing
poaching problems and illegal wildlife trade
affecting DRC's five World Heritage Sites,
including Virunga. This involves coordination
with neighboring countries, training for
enforcement personnel and distribution of
intelligence information.
The International Union for the Conservation
of Nature (IUCN) and UNESCO have also sent
missions to DRC to investigate the gorilla
killings and help devise solutions. Many
other civil society groups are active at
the field level.
Notes to editors
As well as many rare and highly endangered
species, the Democratic Republic of Congo
is home to a wealth of natural resources
including large areas of arable land, water,
forest products and minerals. DRC's million
square kilometer forest are considered to
be one of the largest and most important
carbon sinks on the continent and the world.
DRC is unique in being host to three taxa:
gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos. The latter
are found nowhere else.
UNEP launched the Great
Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP) in 2001
to address the decline in all taxa of great
apes, including gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos,
and orangutans. The GRASP partnership includes
UNEP, UNESCO, CMS, CITES, WHC, great ape
range states, donor countries and NGOs.
In 1979, UNESCO placed
five of the country's national parks on
the World Heritage List: Virunga National
Park, Garamba, Kahuzi-Biega, Salong and
the Okapi Wildlife Reserve. All five now
feature on the World Heritage in Danger
List.
With a wave of gorilla
and elephant killings in 2007, the environmental
situation in the eastern part of the country
became so critical that the DRC government
called for the help of international organizations
in handling the crisis.
Within the framework
of the 3rd World Biosphere Reserves Congress
(Madrid, 4-9 February 2008) and under Spanish
and UNESCO auspices, DRC and Uganda have
signed the 'Tripartite Ministerial Declaration
on the Central Albertine Rift Transboundary
Biosphere Initiative'. UNESCO is now striving
to obtain Rwanda's signature to the agreement,
which aims to promote the 'Environmental
Peace Building' concept in the Great Lakes
Region.
UNEP's Programme in
the Congo mirrors similar assessments undertaken
by UNEP in the Balkans; Afghanistan; the
Occupied Palestinian Territories; Iraq;
Liberia, Lebanon and the Sudan aimed at
assisting countries to set priorities during
reconstruction and rehabilitation phases.
For More Information Please Contact Nick
Nuttall, UNEP
