Event: Guerillas And Gorillas

GUERRILLAS & GORILLAS: CONSERVATION IN THE WARZONES OF EASTERN DRC Speaker: John Kahekwa Hosted by the Marjan Centre for the Study of War & the Non Human Sphere On a rare visit to the United Kingdom, world famous gorilla conservationist John Kahekwa will discuss the unique series of issues that conflict presents to conservation, having been born and worked all his life in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Biography For many years John has been tracking the Eastern Lowland Gorillas in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park that endured some of the worst violence during the widespread conflicts that scarred the region for many years. In the 1990's, the gorilla population at Kahuzi-Biega National Park was placed at around 600; however a new estimate places the population at less than 300. John was the Kahuzi-Biega park’s chief tracker between 1983-2003 during which time he escorted a number of well-known figures who included Bill and Melinda Gates, as well as appearing in the film, ‘Gorillas in the Mist’, about the late gorilla conservationist, Dian Fossey, which was filmed in the park. From his observations about the human impact on gorillas John decided that the key to their protection was to develop an approach that would involve the local community sharing in the benefits of protecting natural resources of an area whose people face challenging social and economic issues. A life-changing moment occurred when John arrested the same poacher for the tenth time inside the park; an exasperated John asked the man why he kept poaching. ‘It's simple, there aren't any jobs’, to which John replied: ‘if you had a job would you stay out of the park’? The poacher replied: ‘yes I would’. In 1992 John set up his own charity, the PolePole Foundation, devoted to bringing the interests of Kahuzi-Biega and those of the local community together (PolePole means ‘slowly-slowly’ in Kiswahili). He started with jobs: John persuaded the 47 worst poachers in the area to retrain as woodcarvers, and persuaded a Japanese donor to fund the planting of 10,000 young trees to provide the wood. Since then John has achieved considerable success, reaping the benefits of staying put while the brutal regional conflicts raged round him and to date the PolePole Foundation has: - planted over 1.5 million trees around the park. - run both a primary and secondary school. - developed income generating projects for former poachers and widows of rangers killed while protecting the gorillas. - developed scientific study link with Kyoto University.