On 24 June 2012, there was attack on the Okapi Faunal Reserve in the village of Epulu in the Ituri province of Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. This is the latest incident in a string of violent raids within the Congo Basin, the second largest rainforest in the world, that have created a renewed climate of terror in Congolese parks, prompting authorities to close the areas to tourists and to send military reinforcement to the area. The attack was carried out by armed men wearing fake Congolese army uniforms, accompanied by Simba rebels (Mai-Mai), who killed seven people, massacred 14 okapis and destroyed the installations of the Congolese Wildlife Authority (ICCN).(2) The eastern part of the park, bordering Uganda and Rwanda, is reported to be the stronghold of the M23 militias, now closing in on the city of Goma, which further contributes to the insecurity in the two Kivu provinces.(3) This presents a caveat for the dangers that loom ahead when rebel groups use the environment to hide, and the wildlife to finance their activities.(4)

This CAI paper discusses the current security shift that is unfolding in the national parks of the Congo Basin due to the presence of several armed groups that continue to escape any state control. The discussion examines how poaching and hunting activities, along with years of political upheaval in the region, continue to threaten the fragile biodiversity of the Congo Basin, and furthermore, adds stress on the overall security and stability of the whole region.(5)

Poaching and hunting in the conflict environment

The Congo Basin abounds with an endemic pathology of armed conflicts, poverty and political instability that have ravaged some countries in the region for well over a decade, resulting in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people.(6) Consequently, the Congo Basin forms the base of an unstable, protracted conflict environment, where hunting game animals often becomes the only means of survival for refugees who find protection and food in the vast national forests.(7) For example, in 1994 approximately 850,000 Rwandan refugees found shelter around the Virunga National Park in the North Kivu District in the then Zaire, where “up to 40,000 people entered the park every day, taking out between 410 and 770 tonnes of forest products.”(8) Food shortages were often reported in the refugee camps, and consequently people turned to venison as both a source of food and a source of income.

Over several thousands of years humans have made their home in the Congo Basin and today, it is home to about 80 million people.(9) It constitutes the major source of subsistence for the population, among which are many vulnerable groups. However, it is also occupied by a myriad of militias and marauding gangs that restrict, often violently, park rangers’ access to many areas of the parks and contribute to weakening the local economy that relies on ecotourism as a source for jobs and income generating activities. Incidences of this violence were published in a 2010 United Nations Environment Programme/International Police (UNEP/Interpol) report on environmental crime and conflict in the Congo Basin. The report indicated that 190 park rangers had been killed over the past 15 years in the Virunga Park alone.(10) As a result of the numerous wars around the Congo Basin, combatants, traders, and an impoverished population have exploited the wealth of the national parks and turned it into profitable enterprises. Under the cover of near-impenetrable forests, they continue to exploit the natural resources of the region, from minerals, to firewood and charcoal or poaching, to finance their operations - often using threats against park rangers who try to interfere with their activities.(11)

The thin line between combatants and poachers

The presence of armed ex-combatants, often operating from areas surrounding refugee camps, provides warlords with sufficient manpower to engage in resource-based economies, such as poaching in and around the national parks.(12) The heritage of decades of conflicts and the absence of economic alternatives for many ex-combatants force many of them to seek any form of sustainable income opportunities.(13) Commercial venison hunting and poaching present opportunities for ex-combatants to break the cycle of poverty and unemployment.(14) A 2003 report by the Small Arms Surveys analysed the impact of small arms proliferation and trade in the Republic of Congo, and it outlined that a domestic market for weapons is driven by two sources. First, “an embryonic (bartering) market for weapons involving ex-combatants and civilians”, and second, “people needing small arms for poaching.”(15) The report also underscored how the illegal arms trade had blossomed in the post-conflict period and served to supply a growing domestic and a cross border market of poaching weapons in which ex-combatants often chose to cross into DRC to sell their weapon on the black market.(16)

In addition to the years of conflict, the erosion of social networks and the collapse of the state’s control over violence feed the illicit economy of forest extraction and jeopardise the fragile biodiversity of the Congo Basin.(17) In the Congo Basin, numerous illegal logging and mining enterprises, along with the expansion of road development, serve to maintain a network of venison and ivory trafficking that fund both the local economy and the war economy. These components threaten the general well-being of local communities that are the first to bear the brunt of the violence and live in fear of a return to full armed conflict.

The protracted nature of the conflicts allows armed gangs, familiar with the environment of the national parks, to move freely through the porous and unguarded borders of the Congo Basin. With limited resources and equipment, the park rangers are often the only early warning signals available before anti-poaching brigades or the military can arrive.

In order to counter the lack of early warning mechanisms, several measures have already been implemented, most notably with the creation of the first Tri-National Anti-Poaching Brigade, on 8 August 2011, to fight poaching in the tri-national Sangha reserve. The 17-man brigade is the result of an initiative by the Sangha Tri-National Foundation and the administrative authorities from Cameroon, Congo-Brazzaville and the Central African Republic. International agreements between the three countries allow these ‘wildlife soldiers’ to track and pursue poachers across borders.(18) However, these measures are often inadequate and the brigades remain under-funded and under-equipped, notably with regard to air surveillance equipment, thus leaving many poachers to escape unscathed. Only a long-term funding commitment for sustainable forest management and conservation can result in an effective way for anti-poaching brigades to effectively lead their mission.(19) This may require the involvement of multilateral strategies between participating states and international donors.

Reaching new markets, financing the wars

In 2010, the IUCN African Elephant Specialist Group (AfESG), on behalf of the Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE), investigated the elephant meat trade in four countries of the Congo Basin. The results “strongly suggest that elephant meat represents an important incentive for poachers to hunt elephants, but that it is secondary to ivory as a driver of illegal elephant killing.”(20) While big game meat is, in the vast majority of cases, sold at local markets around the parks to feed logging, mining or even military personnel, quality ivory from poached elephants is reported to be purchased and exported by East Asians.(21) In its 2005 report, CRISE identified China “as the single most important influence on the increasing trend in illegal trade in ivory since 1995.”(22) Similarly, the countries most affected by the poaching activities and the cross border smuggling include the DRC and the Central African Republic – both of which remain highly volatile and prone to conflict.(23) The shared borders with Sudan facilitate the transit of ivory to the capital Khartoum, but also to Egypt, where a lack of oversight and governmental laws, along with the rise of new consumer market in China, serve to strengthen both countries’ illegal ivory markets.(24)

Since the beginning of 2012, similar attacks to the one on the Okapi Faunal Reserve have occurred in the Bouba Ndjida National Park in Cameroon, where up to 400 elephants have been killed by heavily armed horsemen - likely from Sudan or Chad. This confirms that poaching is no longer the work of lone hunters.(25) Instead, these cross border raids on national parks may suggest that a more nefarious network of war fighting activities are being funded by the illegal trade and export of poached animals to Asia. On 28 February 2012, the Secretary-General of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), John Scanlon, expressed his concerns over “a new trend…where well-armed poachers with sophisticated weapons decimate elephant populations, often with impunity.”(26) The current situation remains far from being under control.

Concluding remarks

The Congo Basin is a region where threats to the natural environment are often marred by a series of protracted conflicts that continue to limit the population’s capacity to respond to these threats. The Congo Basin with its rich wildlife has come under increased pressure as a result of human activity in its national parks. These factors facilitate the plunder of one of the planet’s last Edens by small traders and armed gangs. At the same time, millions of people often have no other choice but to resort to hunting in order to survive. However, the reality demands that African leaders in the region rethink their strategy to stop poachers from spreading fear and violence in the national parks.

The wildlife and sanctuary of national parks encourage the development of an illegal market for big game or venison exploitation that is exacerbated by the presence of illegal activities in national parks that in turn fuel the demand for illegal hunting or poaching. Furthermore, the trade in poaching weapons is an indicator that weapons owned by ex-combatants are (re)entering the black market and sold to civilians or armed groups. The reshuffling in African security concerns, stemming from the changes in the Sahel region, along with the continuing presence of militias can only invite African leaders to ponder the evolution of the security challenges that lie ahead. As indicated in the discussion, the link between poaching, armed groups and limited Government funding in wildlife policies often go hand in hand. Therefore, a monitoring of the shift in conflict narrative within the national parks policies as well as a continued reinforcement of the cross border cooperation is the first step in addressing a situation that, if ignored, will continue to pose an increased threat to the human and environmental security in the Congo Basin.

Written by Sébastien Jadot ⁽¹⁾

NOTES:

(1) Contact Sébastien Jadot through Consultancy Africa Intelligence's Enviro Africa Unit ( enviro.africa@consultancyafrica.com).
(2) Braeckman, C., ‘Massacre dans la réserve d’okapis’, Le Soir, 30 June 2012, http://archives.lesoir.be.
(3) Githaiga, N., ‘The 2011 DRC election polls and beyond’, Institute for Security Studies, 21 June 2012, http://www.issafrica.org.
(4) The discussion acknowledges the existence of subsistence hunting that many small tribes depend on.
(5) Gossman, A., 2009. Tusks and trinkets: An overview of illicit ivory trafficking in Africa. African Security Review, 18(4), pp. 50-69.
(6) ‘The forests of the Congo Basin: A preliminary assessment’, Central Africa Regional Program for the Environment, 2005, http://carpe.umd.edu.
(7) Cooper, P.J. and Vargas, C.M., 2008. Sustainable development in crisis conditions: Challenges of war, terrorism, and civil disorder. Rowman & Littlefield: Plymouth.
(8) McNeely, J.A., 2002. “Overview A: Biodiversity, conflict and tropical forests”, in Matthew, R., Halle, M. and Switzer, J. (eds.). Conserving the peace: Resources, livelihoods and security. International Institute for Sustainable Development and the ICUN: Winnipeg.
(9) McKenna, A., 2011. The history of Central and Eastern Africa. The Rosen Publishing Group: New York.
(10) Nellemann, C., Redmond, I. and Refisch, J. (eds.), 2010. The last stand of the gorilla – environmental crime and conflict in the Congo Basin. A Rapid Response Assessment. United Nations Environment Programme, GRID-Arendal.
(11) Ibid.
(12) Muggah, R. and Nichols, R., ‘Quoi de neuf sur le front congolais?’, Small Arms Survey, December 2007, http://www.smallarmssurvey.org.
(13) Nellemann, C., Redmond, I. and Refisch, J. (eds.), 2010. The Last stand of the gorilla – environmental crime and conflict in the Congo Basin. A Rapid Response Assessment. United Nations Environment Programme, GRID-Arendal.
(14) Ibid.
(15) Biddle, I., et al., 2003. “Making the difference? Weapons collection and small arms availability in the Republic of Congo”, in Small Arms Survey. Development Denied, http://www.smallarmssurvey.org.
(16) Ibid.
(17) Ibid.
(18) ‘Sangha tri-national foundation forest landscape’, World Wildlife Fund, http://www.worldwildlife.org.
(19) Fofung, T., Study on establishing the Congo Basin Forest Fund (CBFF) Governance Structure, UNEP, May 2008, http://www.cbfp.org.
(20) Stiles, D., 2011. Elephant meat and ivory trade in Central Africa. Pachyderm, 50 (July-December), pp. 26-36.
(21) Ibid.
(22) ‘Control of trade in African elephant ivory’, Fifty-third meeting of the Standing Committee
Geneva (Switzerland), CITES SC53 Doc. 20.1, 27 June-1 July 2005, http://www.cites.org.
(23) ‘How China’s illegal ivory trade is causing a 21st century African elephant disaster’, Environmental Investigation Agency, May 2007, http://www.eia-global.org.
(24) Martin, E. and VigneIllegal, L., 2011. Ivory sales in Egypt. TRAFFIC Bulletin, 23(3), pp. 117-122.
(25) ‘Too late – military intervention fails to halt elephant slaughter in Cameroon’, International Fund for Animal Welfare, 12 March 2012, http://www.ifaw.org.
(26) ‘CITES Secretary-General expresses grave concern over reports of mass elephant killings in Cameroon’, CITES, 28 February 2012, http://www.cites.org.