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Protecting the Mountain Gorillas of Virunga
An Aircraft for Virunga
This week was marked by the excitement of our aircraft arriving. It’s a beautiful 1976 four-seater Cessna 182, in amazingly good condition. Believe me, it has to be the best aircraft in the world.  It was found and souped up by a good friend of my wife’s, Mark Gaede, from Colorado, then flown over the North Atlantic via Greenland and Iceland, down through Europe, across Egypt, down the Red Sea to Djibouti and then to Nairobi by Paul Coyne, a former 747 pilot. Many of you helped us make this happen by donating for the purchase of the aircraft. We’re all enormously grateful.
Just after a first landing in Mutsora, with the Ruwenzori Mountains in the background
I was supposed to fly it from Kenya, but I have a slight problem. I haven’t flown for three years, and although I’ve done quite a lot of flying in Congo, most of it was in a plane that I built myself. I never quite mastered the skills of flying a real plane. So from Kenya, I was joined by Jon Cadd, who you will hopefully be hearing more about. He is an incredibly experienced bush pilot (over 12,000 hrs) who flies for the Missionary Aviation Fellowship in Congo. He very kindly checked me out on the 182, and got me flying again.
We’ve been able to do quite a lot of surveillance flights over the park, and suddenly burden of protecting the park feels a little more manageable. We’re able to get staff to where they need to be quickly, provide guidance to patrols on the ground, identify threats before they inflict permanent damage and so on.
I also managed to use some of the airstrips in the park. I finally managed to land on Mutsora airstrip, in the north of the park. This was a big moment. We built the airstrip in 2007, and we’ve had eight poor fellows cutting the grass every day since then without an aircraft ever landing. They were very surprised to see an aircraft on their strip.
So we’ll be using it a lot. We’re planning a hippo survey on the lake quite soon, and with Innocent, we’ll be doing an assessment of the forest destruction for charcoal, and regularly keeping an eye on armed groups in the savannas.
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News from Congo- Report: Congo mutineer forces 149 more boys, young men to fight - Los Angeles Times
- Group: Congo general recruiting children again - Atlanta Journal Constitution
- Vodacom May Lose Congo Shares as Court Orders June Sale - BusinessWeek
- Prosecutor: Congo suspects are guilty as charged - Fox News
- Group: Congo general recruiting children again - STLtoday.com
- ICC Prosecutors Say Congo Leaders Guilty of Village Massacre - AllAfrica.com
- Falconets off to Congo DR - Nigerian Tribune
- Congo Police Investigate Former PM for Corruption - Voice of America
- NEWSMAKER-Goodlace a calm hand for Implats tiller - Reuters
- Congo: Peacekeepers Wounded - New York Times
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7 Responses to “An Aircraft for Virunga”
Brilliant news! So pleased for the rangers and the future of the park. Looking forward to reading about the hippo survey.
Wonderful news! This will have a huge impact on the efforts you make.
What a long trip for that plane! I am very excited about this because I know it will help the savannah and forest areas by better identifying where exactly the trouble spots might be. I am also looking forward to reading about the hippo survey but I feel nervous about the final number because I know there was poaching earlier this year in the southern area of Lake Edward. Hopefully the survey will show that the number of hippos in the North at Ishango continues to rise. I know there has been some good recovery there.
Fantastic! Well done to all involved for pulling this together!
Great news! - gives so much perspective… Thanks a lot.
Great news, Emmanuel! I am ever so pleased for all of you.
Iris
Too cool!!