International Action Organization

The Fitting Extinction of the Gorilla

By Lila Schow
October, 2005

 In September of this year, the United Nations Great Ape Survival Project (Grasp),[1]  sponsored a conference in Kinshasa, DR Congo. The meeting was held to boost international cooperation for saving the animals.  On September 5, 2005, Samy Mankoto, secretary-general of the meeting, created a flurry of activity among the international community and media when he predicted the extinction of the great apes. [2]

This news is nothing new.  In 2003, the Dian Fossy Gorilla Fund claimed eastern lowland gorillas would be extinct by 2004.[3] Since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the world has watched the numbers of gorillas in the Great Lakes regions (Rwanda, Uganda and the DR Congo) drop.  The lowland gorilla has been hardest hit, dropping 70%, from 17,000 to 5, 000.[4]  While some groups appear to be maintaining their pre-war levels and even improving, this does not mean those gorillas are safe.[5]
 

Within eleven days of this latest extinction prediction, more than twenty countries rallied together and signed the Kinshasa Declaration, pledging money and resources to help the gorillas. Acknowledging that the root cause of poaching and deforestation is poverty, the countries pledged to support local communities.[6]

Unfortunately, the “root cause” of the decline in apes in the DR Congo can not be broken down into the category of poverty.  The “root cause” is war.  The war in the DR Congo is not a civil war, as is so often mentioned by the media.  It is a multi-national war, launched in the aftermath of Rwanda’s genocide and sustained by the international communities’ insatiable appetite for the precious resources lying under the jungle of the Congo.[7]

This war is misunderstood and ghastly neglected throughout our media.  The sad fact is that gorillas get more attention when they die than people.  We cry over the loss of the 13,000 lowland gorillas, but the death of 3.5 million humans in the same country causes us to yawn and look away.[8]  Families are murdered into extinction and we don’t whimper.  Apes are hunted by a starving population, desperate to feed their children, and we act appalled.

The United States doesn’t have a natural ape population.  The closest relative we have in North America is the Stephens’ Kangaroo Rat (rodents and primates are very closely related.  The ancestor of both the rodents and the primates was probably an animal which looked rather like a small squirrel or tree shrew.[9]).   Like its cousin, the great ape, the Kangaroo Rat faces extinction due to loss of habitat and “poaching.” In this case the poaching came at the hands of developers and not out of a need for a food source.[10]

The difference in treatment of these two animals is astounding.  No population count on the Stephens’ Kangaroo Rat has been done, their approximate numbers aren’t even known,[11] yet petitions abound to have their “endangered” status downgraded so their habitat can be plowed into malls and suburbs.  “The major threat to the continued existence of the Stephens' kangaroo rat is the destruction of its habitat…Landowners have plowed up hillsides knowing they were eliminating its habitat.”[12] 

Of course, the gorilla is a more visually appealing creature to save than a rat, but is that the only reason for the difference in their treatment? 

Consider the racism tainting our coverage and perception of the people living in the Congo.  Just like in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, white people raiding stores are “looking for food” while black people are “looting.”[13] 

In the Congo, killing the animals for survival is considered, “hunting for commercial trade in bushmeat.”[14] Linguistically, "bushmeat" reduces the Congolese to "natives," their Western-started-and-fueled-war into "tribal fighting that has gone on for generations," and the cities and homes destroyed to "villages and huts."

Complex motivations for the promotion and continuation of the Congo’s war, with its subsequent destruction of jungle is labeled “deforestation,” as if the refugees fleeing the soldiers could somehow stop and engage in some simple wildlife conservation efforts.[15]

These labels are not only misleading, they are racist.  Other factors contributing to the demise of the gorilla are ignored.  The precious resources under the gorilla’s habitat are mined illegally for sale in the US, actions that are hidden from our views.  European tropical timber companies decimate the land.  Their workers hunt and eat apes because they are not provided food. [16]   These issues are not mentioned when discussing the gorillas.

Our views are distorted to the point that we feel more sympathy to an animal than to our neighbors.

Which is why, when it comes to generating funding, the gorillas always win.  The UN is in charge of both the Congo peacekeeping mission (MONUC) and the Congo’s World Heritage Site that shelters the gorillas.  In 2005, MONUC received $957.8 million[17] to cover the cost of saving 57,281,205 million people.[18]  The World Heritage Site received $4.6 million[19] to cover the cost of saving 5,510 gorillas (5, 000 lowland gorillas,[20] 380 mountain gorillas, 130 Grauer’s gorillas.[21]).

Which prices each Congolese at $16.72 and each gorilla at $834.84.  Is it any wonder that war has been destroying the Congo for nine years when the group created “to maintain international peace and security; to develop friendly relations among nations; to cooperate in solving international economic, social, cultural and humanitarian problems and in promoting respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms; and to be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in attaining these ends”[22] won’t even recognize the value of the Congolese people over animals?

Despite numerous peace treaties (May 14, 2005 new constitution aimed at ending the war,[23] June 2004 peace talks,[24] April 2003 new power-sharing constitution, December 2002 peace accords in South Africa, October, 2002 peace talks, September 2002 peace accord, April 2002 peace talks in South Africa and the July 1999 Lusaka Peace Accords.[25]) fighting ravages the county's eastern border.   The epicenter is the National Heritage Sites protecting the gorillas. 

The war kills 1,000 people each day, half of them younger than five. [26]

Even now, as thousands of children die each week from drinking dirty water and not having enough food, and the people of once-thriving communities hide like the hunted in the forests.[27]

Yet where is the conference for these people?  Where are the dire predictions, the declarations and pledges?  Where are we, the humanitarian United States?

I do not mean to trivialize the importance of species conservation.  What we can learn from gorillas may prove invaluable to understanding ourselves.  But why should they get more care than our fellow humans?  Is it because we view them as innocent?  Do we blame all 57,281,205 million Congolese for their current state?  Do we secretly feel their suffering and deaths are justified?

If that is so, then our contempt will surely speed the gorilla’s path to extinction, despite our money and efforts.  You need only compare the success of Dr. Jane Goodall to the failures of Dian Fossy.  Dr. Goodall recognized from the start that her success stemmed from how the people were treated, not the animals. 

In 1994, refugees from Rwanda fled to her preserves in Tanzania as well as the ones in the DR Congo.  The difference became her Roots and Shoots program.  Aimed at improving the lives of the community and recognizing their significance in her efforts to save chimpanzees, Root and Shoots has proven essential to Tanzania’s impoverished. 

A lot of the research is done by Tanzanians from surrounding villages, which is why we've had no poaching, because they're involved in the project. We study baboons there as well. We also have a big program to try to improve the lives of the people living in the villages around this tiny park, an island of forest surrounded by a huge [cleared] area. And that's working; they understand that we care about them as well as the chimpanzees….I tried so hard to persuade Dian to involve the local people in her project and she wouldn't….that's why she died, I'm sure. She felt that if the Africans got close to the gorillas the way she was, the gorillas would then be more vulnerable to poachers. And I would say to her, "Our chimps know the difference between my field staff and strangers. I'm sure your gorillas would." Anyway, the poachers at that time were poaching for money. So, if she gave them jobs and they got to know what the gorillas were like, they'd love them, just like the Gombe field staff do with the chimps.[28]

The international community seems to slowly be accepting Goodall’s efforts to improve lives in the community to promote wildlife conservation.  It’s not hard to convince governments how lucrative the gorillas can be.  Before the war in the DR Congo, Virunga National Park, home to a large group of mountain gorillas, generated $10 million a year in tourism.

Scientist Richard Leakey appealed for help, saying, "It is important to remember we are talking about the future of a member of our family, not a strange creature that lives in the jungle." [29]

Taken at a glance, it may seem unclear who he is talking about, humans or apes.  But it becomes clear when he adds, "The problem of the apes is not a shortage of money, it is a shortage of strategy," Leakey said. "Let us devote our minds - the one thing we have more of than other apes - and let's secure their future." [30]

While the September 12 agreement highlights gorilla conservation as dependent on creating strategies for poverty reduction and for developing sustainable livelihoods, it fails to accurately pinpoint the cause behind the conditions.[31]

“The agreement calls for each range state to develop a plan for conservation within its territory, and for western nations and international agencies to support these plans financially.”[32] That is where it will fail.  With no specific plans to improve the lives of the Congolese, none will be voluntarily implemented. 

I do not believe that the developed world actually considers Africans, particularly South Saharan Africans, as being total humans. I still feel that they consider them as children, as reactive to extreme emotions, and that sooner or later even the more developed ones you'll have a coup d'etat or something else and they'll go into [mass killings]. – Romeo Dallaire[33]

So it is fitting that the gorillas go extinct, despite the hard work of so many.  You cannot save a species until you save the people sharing the land.

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