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As of January 2012 Virunga National Park will once again offer visitors the chance to see chimps in the forests of Tongo. Tongo is situated 2 hours drive north of Goma, 3 hours drive from Bunagana and only 1 hours drive from Mikeno Lodge (Rumangabo).

Chimps in Tongo were previously habituated by Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS) in the 1980s. Unfortunately due to the civil unrest in 1993 in DR Congo, FZS was unable to continue their work until September 2009 when they returned to Tongo and the habituation process was re-started in June 2010.

There are currently 36 individual chimpanzees who live in Tongo’s forests who can be tracked along some of the 80 km of trails. The trails cut the entire forest from north to south and east to west and are about 200 meters apart.

Permits will cost $100 (excluding transport) and as with all our permits:

• 50% of your permit fee goes to ICCN, the Congolese wildlife authority. ICCN uses this money for funding the management and conservation efforts in all Congolese National Parks.
• 30% of your permit fee is invested by Virunga National Park into community projects. 
These projects include activities such as building schools, health centres, and improving water supplies to local communities.
• 20% of your permit fee goes towards the operational costs of Virunga National Park. 
Operational costs can range from salaries of our rangers who play an invaluable role in the survival of the park, to investment in infrastructure in and around the park which also benefits local communities.

8th October 2008
On this day, three years ago, we faced our darkest moment.  The CNDP rebels stepped up their attack on the government forces and our park station, here at Rumangabo, was on the frontline between loyalist and rebel armies.  We were violently attacked and there followed a period of incredible suffering for our rangers and their families.  This video was put together by Pierre Peron, a colleague and friend who lived through these difficult times with us.  The video relives that terrible day.  We would like to remember our history and those who fell so that we could continue our work.

I’d love to hear from any of you who have followed our work since October 2008.  It has been quite a journey, and many of you have accompanied us along the way.

This video is in English and French with no subtitles, and includes some interviews with Eddy, the cameraman, and Balemba, who describes on camera what is happening that day.

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Happy Hollow Zoo is a lovely little zoo in San Jose, California. They have been supporting the park through yearly fundraisers for several years. Last Saturday, October 1st, they held another function that raised $11,200 for the park, specifically to help the widows and children of rangers who have died protecting the park. We made a video for their event, which they said greatly helped. Here is what Vanessa wrote:

“It was a great evening! We had such a good time and were joined by many new faces. 
The video was the highlight of the evening, it touched many hearts and really put a face on the cause – it was so excellent and moving.”

Every bit of money helps enormously. We’re still well short of our goal of providing $30/day, but with each donation, we’re getting closer. Eventually, we hope to be able to cover childrens’ education or basic medical as well.

Here is the video we made for them. Thank you Happy Hollow Zoo and everyone else who contributed to this cause! We are enormously grateful.

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We haven’t been keeping up with Photo Friday and/or Video Friday, so today you get both, and it’s all about football (or “soccer” for you Americans). This video is about the community “Virunga Cup” tournament that took place a few weeks ago. The photos are from the new vs. old ranger game from last weekend . Enjoy!

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Virunga Cup Video by Katya.  (If you can’t see this video, click here)

Ranger Game:

Warden Emmanuel De Merode, Southern Sector Warden, Innocent Mburanumwe, and friend Jean Pierre watch from the top of the hill.

Jacqueline, visiting Virunga with her husband Jean Pierre, is surrounded by children on the hill next to the football field.

The construction of a lodge in Virunga National Park is anything but ordinary. Volcanic lava is the primary building material, the location is on a hillside, materials are all hand-carried down a path through a jungle, roofing material is grass collected from a savanna to the north, and the closest city is a 1.5-hour drive away.  There are no bulldozers, cranes, cement mixers, or any other equipment to ease the construction process. Everything is manual labor in the most real sense of the word.

Cai Tjeenk Willink tells how it all works in this video:

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Two weeks ago, the SB Mukunda made another dash for people’s crops, which put him at risk of being killed by angry farmers.  This meant we had to consider an aneasthetic intervention to bring him back in the park.

Last time Mukunda was out of the park in July last year at Kibumba village and market. There he was brought back in the park under full anesthesia.  It carries with it some risk.

This time it seems he may have been aware about the intervention.  As soon as he saw the vets, he made a dash for the park, just picking some maize to eat along the way. Surprisingly, he was quite and peaceful and friendly towards us and appeared quite comfortable about the whole situation.

All’s well that ends well.

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Fireballs. It sounds like something coming out of the sky in a natural disaster. Actually, it is a great invention by a Kenyan company that Virunga National Park initiated here in March of this year. Basically, new fuel briquettes are produced from charcoal waste (dust), salvaged from wholesalers in the city of Goma. Charcoal+Dust = “Chardust.” And the new charcoal balls are called “Fireballs.”

The park faces considerable challenges in protecting the park’s forests from large-scale illegal charcoal production. In contrast with most other cities in East Africa, charcoal consumption in Goma is used almost exclusively across all households because higher-quality alternatives such as kerosene, liquefied petroleum gas, and electricity are unavailable or unaffordable for cooking. Virtually the entire urban population depends upon charcoal.

The charcoal dust in Goma is found in seven specific areas of the city.  The Chardust project aims to create jobs and make available cheap eco-friendly energy sources through recycling.  It employs jobless women in different areas of the city for charcoal dust collection. The dust is brought to the alternative energy center located on the outskirts of Goma, where it’s then turned into fireballs briquettes. The production line involves 8 people and producing 350 kgs per day but the target is to reach 1000 kgs per day.

The selling was launched at the beginning of May, and will be focused mostly on big consumers like restaurants, hotels, hospitals and later for households.

We believe that this program will reduce the crude charcoal consumption by using its waste product. We are aware, however, that this is not a long-term solution to the charcoal problem, but will help in the interim while other sustainable solutions, like the bio-mass briquettes, are being further developed.

Watch this video on the process of production:

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Gorillas are pretty amazing to watch, even when they’re doing next to nothing. We watch them eating leaves, stretching out on the grass for a snooze, or swinging from trees as if it’s a fascinating drama. Imagine a group of aliens watching us eat in rapturous fascination. So when something actually dramatic takes place, like…say…a broken fingernail, accompanied by a lot of screaming…it’s quite exciting.

And so we present the Humba gorilla family in a slightly more dramatic moment.

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Here is a short video of the first day that Dr. Jan Ramer from Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project, and Debby Cox from the Jane Goodall Institute supervised the integration of the four orphan gorillas in February. You can read about that HERE. We’ve come a long way in the last month from the constant screaming of little 4-year-old gorillas the first few weeks.

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