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...

Our FZS staff in the Congo now has some female support. Since June Lucy Fauveau is working with the team as the Technical Advisor for Virunga National Park Conservation Project as we are extending our Virunga Project into a wider Congo Programme.

Lucy’s background is on the development and humanitarian side. Amongst other things, she was supporting the management of refugee camps in Chad. She is French but grew up in Asia where both parents were carrying out humanitarian work for the United Nations. She went to school in Singapore and then attended the School of...

On the 11th March 2009, Serge Ukundji, FZS logistician based in the Virunga National Park, received a national award for bravery for his support to ICCN in their efforts to protect the park's forests from the devastating trade in illegal charcoal.

The Abraham Award for Nature Conservation is awarded annually for those individuals who have gone above and beyond the call of duty to protect Congo's national parks, and Serge was one of five recipients from Virunga National Park to receive the reward. Serge had his life threatened on several...

Nearly the entire province is under rebel control and will probably remain so until the government agrees to negotiate with them and have tackled the problem of the FDLR, an armed group responsible for the 1994 Rwandan Genocide who have sought refuge in DRC.

Meanwhile, the ICCN has managed to open up dialogue with the rebels who now control much of the park and has managed to negotiate the return of 120 rangers to Rumangabo Park Headquarters. They are currently negotiating the possibility of carrying out a census in order to establish what impact the recent...

The CNDP rebels loyal to dissident General Laurent Nkunda have continued to enlarge the area under their control while the Congolese army have suffered defeat after defeat.

The entire central sector of the park is now under CNDP control following heavy fighting a few days ago, which broke out as Serge from the Frankfurt Zoological Society was helping evacuate rangers and their families from Rwindi Park Station. They had been trapped there without food for four days and the situation was getting desperate. Shortly after Serge arrived with the UN escort, renewed...

Virunga National Park, where FZS is working to protect the critically
endangered mountain gorillas, is threatened with imminent destruction as a
result of extremely violent combat between government forces and rebels
loyal to the dissident general Laurent Nkunda. The fighting has created
one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in recent history, and Park
Rangers and their families are among the victims.

On Sunday 26th October, Virunga National Park's headquarters suffered a
violent attack by CNDP rebels. This marked the...