TONGO forest, on the 18th of November 2009
I’m Lucy the FZS Technical Advisor for the Virunga National Park in Eastern DR Congo. Alexis, is the chimp habituation officer for FZS, and our oldest staff with the Virunga project. He is in the field leading the team of one of our most exciting projects in Virunga: the re-start of a Chimp habituation project in a little primary forest block of 10km² called TONGO, where there is an estimated 30 chimps (according to the last census in 2005). You can also find black and white colobus, Cercopithecus mitis and black duikers there. So far the project is supported only by FZS, and we are expecting more funding from other donors early next year.
FZS pioneered the first and only chimp habituation project in Virunga, at TONGO in 1987. At that time, tourists would come to visit the habituated chimps in Tongo. It was one of the main tourist attractions along with the mountain gorilla visits in the neighbouring Mikeno sector (where our other FZS project is situated). Since September, Alexis has recruited and trained a new team of 30 trackers from the local community (from the Tongo village, as it is on the border of the park). They have been working very hard and consistently 6 days a week starting early in the morning for the last 2 and a half months to re-open the transects in the forest that had overgrown during the years of conflict that put the project on hold. They have been working in difficult conditions – right in the middle of the rainy season – not getting discouraged by the daily afternoon downpours, continuing to hack away at branches and removing dead trees that have fallen blocking the paths. They have covered 4/5th of the area already and plan to be finished by the end of this year. The ICCN (Congolese wildlife authority) rangers accompany them in the forest a few times a week.
FZS has ordered excellent quality field gear for them which made the trackers very proud (see picture) and happy to now keep their feet dry! They each received a pair of boots, socks, trousers, T-shirts, shirts, a belt, a hat, a water bottle and a poncho to carry out their important work. This will allow them to continue working more comfortably and be able to finish re-opening the forest transects so that next year we can carry out a complete chimp census, and start the habituation process again – which Alexis estimates could take up to 20 months. It will make for a long day to be waking up at 4am everyday of the week, identifying the chimp’s nests, waiting for them to wake up, then trying to follow and keep up with them throughout the day! But you’ll hear more on that early next year...
Lucy and Alexis
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