Gorilla Journal Journal of Berggorilla & Regenwald Direkthilfe No. 55, December 2017 Micro-Projects for A One Health Transboundary Conserving Ebo Conservation and Approach to Go- Conservation Gorillas through against Poaching rilla Conservation of Cross River Community and Deforestation Gorillas Collaboration BERGGORILLA & REGENWALD DIREKTHILFE Authors of this Issue works as a book editor. Since 1992 she CONTENTS has been part of the Board of Directors D. R. Congo 3 Andrew Dunn is the Country Director of Berggorilla & Regenwald Direkthilfe. Micro-Projects for Conservation and of the WCS Nigeria Program and Daniel M. Mfossa is the Clubs des against Poaching and Deforestation 3 has been working to help save Cross Amis des Gorilles coordinator for the Virunga Park Again Threatened by River gorillas since 2004. He has Ebo Forest Research Project. He is a Oil, Links to SOCO 6 been working on biological survey and doctoral student at ERAIFT-University Three Rangers Killed in Virunga 7 conservation projects in Africa since of Kinshasa and is conducting research Death of Silverback Noël 8 1989. on the Ebo gorilla population and Batwa Shot Dead in Kahuzi-Biega 8 Ekwoge Abwe holds an MSc in habitat. Bandits Kill an Itombwe Ranger 8 Primate Conservation from Oxford Dr. Bethan Morgan studied forest Rwanda 9 Brookes University. He has studied elephants in Gabon and held a five- 50 Years of Karisoke 9 great apes in the Ebo region since year postdoctoral post in Cameroon Uganda 10 2004 and has been engaging human studying the ecology of primates, A One Health Approach to Gorilla local communities in the conservation particularly drills, and other large Conservation 10 of the gorillas since 2011. mammals. She was part of a team that Tribute to Kanyonyi 13 Dr. Inaoyom Imong is the Director of the first “discovered” the Ebo gorillas in Cross River 14 Cross River Landscape Project of WCS 2002 and has been working to protect Strengthening Transboundary Con- Nigeria. He has been involved in Cross this population and their habitat ever servation of Cross River Gorillas 14 River gorilla conservation since 2004. since. Update on the Superhighway 15 For his PhD, he studyied ecological Dr. Martha Robbins, a research Gorillas 16 and anthropogenic influences on the associate at the Max Planck Institute Conserving the Ebo Gorillas distribution and conservation of Cross for Evolutionary Anthropology, has through Community Collaboration 16 River gorillas. been studying the behavioural ecology Silverback Sagas 20 Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka is of gorillas since 1990. Since 1998, she Variation in Gorilla Behaviour – founder and CEO of Conservation has been studying the socioecology and Culture? 22 Through Public Health. She studied and reproductive strategies of mountain Colin P. Groves Obituary 25 Veterinary Medicine in London and then gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable National Reading 26 worked for Uganda Wildlife Authority Park, since 2005 she has been working Berggorilla & Regenwald from 1996 to 2000. This involved setting with the gorillas in Loango. Direkthilfe 27 up veterinary programs for mountain Claude Sikubwabo Kiyengo conduct- gorillas and other wildlife together with ed a gorilla survey in the Maiko National Gorilla Journal 55, December 2017 community education. After this, she Park from 1989 to 1992, and in 1994 Editor: Dr. Angela Meder underwent specialized training at the he took part in the gorilla census in Augustenstr. 122, 70197 Stuttgart, North Carolina State University and Kahuzi-Biega. After that he worked Germany carried out research on TB in humans, for the ICCN in Goma, from 2000 to Fax +49-711-6159919 wildlife and livestock in Queen Eliza- 2004 for the IUCN program PPP and E-mail [email protected] beth and Bwindi Impenetrable National in 2005 for the regional office of IUCN Translation and Proofreading: Ann Parks. in Central Africa. From 2006 to 2007 DeVoy, Bettina and Andrew Grieser Dr. Angela Meder studied the be- he was chief conservator of the Parc Johns, Colin Groves, Birgit Trogisch haviour and development of captive National des Virunga, central sector. Cover: The leading silverback of the lowland gorillas for 10 years. Today she In 2004 he became the coordinator of Bikingi group, Bwindi the NGO VONA and since 2008 he Photo: Wolfram RietschelI Organization Address: has been our assistant. Since 2010 Berggorilla & Regenwald Direkthilfe he is Director of the Institut Su peri- Bank Account: c/o Burkhard Broecker eur de Conservation de la Nature, En- IBAN DE06 3625 0000 0353 3443 15 Juedenweg 3 vironnement et Tourisme (ISCNET) in BIC SPMHDE3E 33161 Hoevelhof, Germany Rumangabo, from 2011 to 2016 he was Switzerland: E-mail [email protected] the PACEBCo expert for conservation IBAN CH90 0900 0000 4046 1685 7 Website: and biodiversity in the Virunga region BIC POFICHBEXXX http://www.berggorilla.org (COMIFAC). 2 Gorilla Journal 55, December 2017 D. R. CONGO Can Micro-Projects Promote Conservation and Campaigns against Poaching and Deforestation? The Sarambwe Reserve and Mount Tshiaberimu are two refuges for gorillas near the central and northern part of the Virunga National Park, conserving the mountain gorilla Gorilla beringei beringei in Sarambwe and Grauer’s gorilla Gorilla beringei graueri on Mount Tshiaberimu. The Sarambwe Reserve is a 900 ha area adjacent to the Bwindi Impene- trable National Park in Uganda. About one third of its area has been deforest- ed; at least a part of it is regularly used for growing subsistence crops – mainly by Ugandans who pretend that the land is on the Ugandan side of the border. Although its surface area seems rather small, the Sarambwe Reserve Poacher with his dog arrested in the Sarambwe Reserve shelters a very rich and abundant fau- Photo: Jean Paul Kambere na. This includes six species of pri- mates: blue monkeys, red-tailed mon- ily, the bush pig. There are 23 gorillas: the primates can eat, such as figs keys, baboons, chimpanzees, gorillas one group of 12 individuals, a second and avocadoes. and black-and-white colobus monkeys, group of 8 individuals, a recently ar- and one representative of the pig fam- rived group of two, and a solitary male. Since 2008, when our sustained inter- The other primate species have been ventions in the area around the Sar- protected area Ishasha observed in impressively large groups ambwe Reserve were initiated, many national border over the last three months, with num- forms of support have been delivered bers per group up to 150 for baboons, through micro development projects UGANDA 72 for red-tailed monkeys, 57 for black- for the benefit of the local population and-white colobus, 49 for blue mon- and the schools (in addition to monitor- Parc National keys and 27 for chimpanzees. Such ing of the reserve). The beneficiaries Rutshuru des Virunga Butogota a large number of primates in a very of micro-projects have reported sev- small and badly invaded forest remnant eral cases of poaching and trespass- Sarambwe can be explained as follows: ing into the park to the trackers, and to Réserve Rusura the joint task force of army and ICCN. Naturelle Buhoma – the dietary habits of the local popu- These denunciations have assisted the de Sarambwe Nteko lation: these people do not eat pri- officers responsible for conservation in Bwindi mate meat as primates are consid- addressing intrusion into the reserve D. R. CONGO Impenetrable National Park ered to be too close to humans; for the purpose of poaching, logging Rutshuru – the closeness of Bwindi National or agriculture. Unfortunately, these de- Park, where the majority of primates nunciations are occurring only on the move during the most difficult sea- Congolese side. Sarambwe Reserve son, the dry season; For the period June to September, Map: Angela Meder – above all, an abundance of fruit that it was estimated that 114 ha deforest- 3 Gorilla Journal 55, December 2017 D. R. CONGO ed land was being cultivated, 14 ha of which are located within the part that is managed by the Congo, and 100 ha of which are located within the area where the boundary is disputed. The trackers destroyed 8 ha of beans and 5 ha of banana plantation. Three cases of pit- sawing have also come to light, with the arrest of one pit-sawyer and the confiscation of 25 planks. Bush fire de- stroyed 36 ha in an area that had been cultivated previously. Thanks to the denunciations noted above, 25 traps were dismantled and three poachers were arrested, one of whom had a dog. As a result of the severe dry season which gripped the region, pastoralists tried to take their cows into the reserve for grazing. Again thanks to the de- nunciations, 39 cows belonging to one herder were seized: the file was trans- Pit-sawing in the Sarambwe Reserve – the planks were confiscated. ferred to the ICCN for further action. Photo: Jean Paul Kambere Other pastoralists subsequently did not try to take their cows into the reserve. they had monitored the movements of where to poach without encountering We can rejoice that these poachers the trackers and tried to find out about the trackers. At the moment, thanks to were arrested as we did not know that the patrol’s itineraries in order to know the population’s enthusiasm for the mi- cro-projects, people do not hesitate to denounce the poachers and even to di- vulge their plans. This is a basis for ef- fective monitoring and protection of the Sarambwe Reserve. At the beginning of March 2017, several development activities were started in the vicinity of Sarambwe and Mount Tshiaberimu. These activities aimed to increase the income of the local population, to valorise local prod- ucts, to reduce the pressure on certain vulnerable resources and to introduce new economic activities. A bee-keeping project aimed to valorise the trees that were planted as part of the projects for tree nurseries for schools and for the trackers’ wives ‒ which were funded in past years ‒ and to increase the beneficiaries’ incomes.