I opened my email today to find 2 letters about the
Cleve Hick's Bili Ape post. A letter from distinguished wildlife champion
Karl Ammann followed by a rebuttal by Cleve Hicks who has lived and worked in the Bili area for 18 months since 2004.
I am glad to provide this blog as a forum to discuss these matters. I by no means pretened to know what is happening right now in DRC, but I do know how absolutely devastating it can be to see the conflict between the apes we want to protect and the people living in ape range countries that have so much less than us (those of us living in developed nations). On the other hand, I agree with Karl Ammann that we have too much "feel good conservation" going around (not that the Bili area falls under that title in my opinion). The situation is bad for all the great apes and tough decisions need to be made now by those leading the huge number of conservation agencies working in Africa (and Asia) today.
This by no means is a black and white issue and I think both letters raise some very interesting points (when they are not slandering one another).
I also want to remind you that all is not a lost cause, there have been efforts in DRC around field sites to eliminate the presence of poachers who are emptying the forests of the country. One such example is Jonas Eriksson's work around Gottfried Hohmann's bonobo research site in Solonga National Park. (Original posting
HERE with correction by GH
HERE).
Finally, I would like to say that I really agree with Cleve's PS. At the end of the day, it is our fault in developped countries, as we have created a market for goods from Africa (and Asia). It is us who turn a blind eye to where the materials we use originate. Until we each became much more conscientious buyers, it will do little good to place blame on the people at the source who have so little to begin with. Its pretty basic supply and demand.
For more information on the Bili Apes please visit
Cleve Hick's and
Karl Ammann's sites
Karl Amman's letter:
Dear Mimi,
a third party suggested I look at the DNAPes web page and your home page concerning a recent posting on the Bili Chimps.
Below I message I sent to Hans Wasmoeth and Cleve Hicks several weeks ago. It clearly illustrates that the Bili chimps were in big trouble long before any miners moved in.
Their troubles increased once conservation started taking a back seat to collecting scientific data and the main policy became not to rock the boat in any way and to look the other way where and whenever possible.
As ususal this was then combined with new hype and selling of feel good conservation tales which had nothing to do with the realities on the ground.
In the interest of providing the readers with a balanced message I do feel this should also go up on your DNAPES web page.
Regards
Karl Ammann
(the reason the Azande of northern Congo hava light foot print is because their are very few of them and the population is declining which in turn and according to the resident missionaries is mostly a result of inbreeding.
Inviting in miners by the traditional chiefs is this opposite of wisdom. It will affect their tribal cohesion and once and for all dispell the rumours of their powerfull witchcraft which so far has kept neighbouring tribes clean of the area.)
Dear Hans,
I guess the fact that we have had some major differences of opinion as far as the Bili conservation project is concerned seems beyond doubt. However I always had high hopes that in the end the project was more then a tax shelter scheme.I am no longer sure that this analysis was right.
I just spent some 12 days in the region with some journalists and while our main objective was to establish the demand pattern for elephant meat compared to that of ivory, we did conduct a wide range of interviews, which included residents of Bili on visit in Zemio, as well as some extensive low level survey flying over many parts of the Bili Uere protected areas and other parts of the CAR and DRC (the first
elephant we managed to spot from the air was however at Dzanga Sangha, while Ron kept pointing out saline/clearings where only ten years ago dozens of elephants would have congregated late in the afternoon).
As such the results of this survey were more then just distressing:
- It would appear that the U$ half a million 'bridge to nowhere' built by MMe Live, combined with the hundred thousands you have put into the coffee scheme have resulted in some kind of an economic boom scenario for Bili. We were told that there are now even large new shops selling electronic equipment among other items. The result, as should have been expected, is an influx of new residents which combined with the new disposable income seem to have drastically increased the demand for bush meat. This influx also includes two prominent hunters from the Gadia village one of them being Caiman, and the fact that they do not seem to have turned to carpentry or agriculture at their new residence.
- We were told a wide range of ammunition and guns are now available for sale in Bili ( a few years ago the lack of ammunition was one of the main restrictive factors as far as poaching was concerned).
- According to Shadraka, during a recent visit by Chief Selesi to Zemio he declared that he had outlawed the sale of elephant meat in the Bili market but that the sale of any other bush meat was not restricted
- The end result appears to be that the bush meat supply and demand pattern has drastically changed: While pretty much all the elephant meat still comes out through Zemio there is now a flow of smaller bush meat items FROM THE BORDER AREA INTO BILI.
- Ron reported that on his most recent trip to Bili he saw five baskets of elephant meat being transported openly on the road between Badai and the camp and that he was able to smell it far down the trail.(something you would have been aware of).
- The reports from Shadrak state that one of the former trackers (Commando) has gone back to active elephant hunting and has killed several this year in the Gangu area.
- Several other parties have killed elephants out of the last remaining herd of elephants along the Gangu. This includes a Mr. Martin and Mr. Merci who delivered an elephant in smoked form to Gadia on May 2nd.
- On May third another elephant arrived in 'the same condition' this time hunted by Tanibouaniwia (the guy Alexis managed to get arrested at one point - albeit without much impact it would appear) in the Ebale area and again transported via Badai and Bulamassi.
- On May fourth the wife of a hunter came to the mission to sell the meat of a hippo which her husband had shot on the Dume River and which again came out via Bulamassi
(I have little doubt that in these hunting forays in the area of the research camp and the Gangu river the research transects are being used to gain access to the forest and transport the meat)
- On May 6th another elephant and ivory arrived in Gadia, hunted by Tanibouaniwia's assistant from the Ebale/village forest again involving the transport through Badai and via Bulamassi to Adama.
- While in the past we contemplated to set up hidden trip cameras to monitor the elephant meat traffic on forest trails running from Ebale up to the Assa River, this no longer seems to be an issue: The meat is now again transported openly on bicycles (most likely including coffee project bicycles) along the main road through chief Selesi's village and the main coffee buying area.
- We also obtained the new custom duty tax list at Zemio and nothing much has changed as far as importing bush meat from the DRC except it has all gotten a lot more detailed. Besides the 'paniers' of smoked meat - which are almost always elephant - there are now taxes for individual pieces and lots of 10 pieces and as a new addition specific taxes for dead antelopes and monkeys. There is little doubt that dead chimps are covered by this and Sadraka has reported the arrival of chimp meat but it also covers a wide range of lesser primates which are all covered under Appendix 2 of the CITES convention two which both the DRC and CAR are signatories.
- Elephant meat in Zemio is no longer openly sold in the market but there now is a very active house to house trade - as by the wife of the Gadia hunter who came to sell hippo meat to MMe Wendy
- A French trophy hunter with a camp on the way to Rafai, which we interviewed, confirmed that there was still regularly meat shipments which came via Ginekoumba and Dembia and that Mmm Reimond from Rafai was still in the meat trading business.
- The cameraman also run the camera while discussing ivory with a Chadian ivory trader in town and while I have not seen a transcript yet he stated that the ivory trade had picked up and was very active at the moment.
I have for the last ten years had one mantra, that of preaching independent third party auditing of conservation projects and to hopefully learn from mistakes. As I said before, I am more then just distressed to see that I initiated a conservation project which now seem to go the route of many of the others, becoming a major part of the problem rather then a solution and without any real effort being made to evaluate the overall impact.(putting Shadrakas reports up on your web page might be an initial step).
If all the above is combined with the fact that the DRC law does not allow commercial cultivation in protected areas and that a big part of the coffee buying project covers areas in the hunting and wildlife reserve, I would have thought that such an independent third party - unannounced - audit would be in everybodys interest but certainly in that of the last hippos and elephants in the Bili Uere area.
I also have now been maintaining for years that conservation projects in this part of the world have no hope to succeed if they do not combine an arsenal of carrots and sticks. Buying the coffee clearly amounts to a major carrot, withdrawing the coffee income and investing it instead in real and serious law enforcement by well trained ecoguards - from outside the project area - could be relevant sticks. At this stage to pretend things are under control and that no additional measurers are needed and that the present approach is working has a high chance of The Wasmoeth Wildlife Foundation, in the end, presiding over the last elephant and hippo of the area ending up in an Azande cooking pot.
Ball in your court
Karl
Cleve Hick's letter:
Dear Mimi,
If you do decide to post Ammann's response to my posting, I hope you will post the following as well (but I will understand if you choose not to post either):
Ammann quit the Bili project in early 2005 and has not returned to the area since. The closest he came was Zemio early this year, and much of his reporting from there is based on hearsay and speculation. I actually lived in Bili for a total of 18 months, in 2004-2005, and then 2006-2007. I also spent much time surveying nearby collectivities in 2006. The results can be found on our website presentation. If Ammann choses to ignore the reports of the very scientist he sent into the area, and instead base everything on gossip from sources living 60 km away from Bili, that is his choice. It seems to me he does not have much interest in the pristine Gangu Forest that is currently at risk, and is more interested in proving his point that DRC is corrupt and incompetent, and that all conservationists and researchers (except for him, of course) are sell-outs.
Ammann expresses a clear contempt for the Azande people. He never took the time to learn their language (or even Lingala) and now all he can talk about is their inbreeding. I lived with these people for over a year, and they do have much wisdom. If their leaders have made a bad choice (or have been forced to make that bad choice by outsiders wielding large amounts of money, and probably weapons) that does not mean that their society is worthless, and should not be protected. They have certainly done a better job of guarding their charismatic megafauna than, say, Switzerland.
Re Ammann's claim that hunters have been using our transects to access Gangu: The Dume River boders the Guamonge and Sasa Collectivities to the east. It is perhaps 70 km from Gangu. So why on earth would Ammann imply that a hippo and some elephants were being hunted by poachers using our two year-old transects at Gangu? I can personally attest that this is not the case. First of all, as far as we can tell there are no hippos in the Gangu (it is a very small river). In 2006, we verified that the transects had become completely overgrown and had not been used for anything since our departure (indeed, you could hardly tell they were there). It would have been impossible to follow them even two years ago, as we disguised them by marking them with flagging tape on the savannahs and later removing the tape. Ammann has an active imagination, and his baseless accusations here are nothng short of slander.
It is nothing more than idle (and inflammatory) speculation that TWWF bikes are being used to transport elephant meat through the Bili area. I suppose that this claim is based on missionary pilot Ron Pontier's observation of what was probably elephant meat being carried by bike near Baday (which, Ron acknowledged to me that very day, could have been buffalo meat). This was one incident. I have made the Bili-Baday walk numerous times, and have observed smoked fish and red-tailed monkeys being transported, but never elephant meat nor that of any other large mammals (contrast this to the neighboring collectivity of Sasa, where during a one week survey I found an orphan chimpanzee for sale and saw two big loads of unidentified mammal meat being carried across the Mbomu; Jeroen Swinkels encountered porters carrying elephantt meat,and photographed the meat). No one is claiming that elephants have not been hunted in the Bili area, before and after my arrival. But to me, it was very interesting to see that elephants were still numerous at Gangu and even near Baday (within 5 km!) when I returned in 2006-2007, even after a year in which the coffee had not been bought. We still have a chance at Gangu. However, the gold mining threat may put an end to that chance.
Most outrageous are Ammann's repeated claims that the conservation project was sabotaged by a focus on research. This implies that the situation at Bili (prior to the gold mining invasion) has actually worsened since my arrival in 2004. Again for the record, the research camp was evacuated in early 2004 due to threats from poachers, several months prior to my arrival. On the very first day of my arrival in August 2004, I was sent by Ammann to film a police commandant hiding ivory in his house. Three chimpanzee orphans had been confiscated from Bili and neighboring areas, again, prior to my arrival. And elephants were being killed going all the way back to Ammann's earliest reports on the region - there are photos in Consuming Nature of our very own trackers proudly displaying elephant meat prior to the initiation of the project. Yes, elephants were being killed during my time at Bili (but not at Gangu!!!) as well as before. During my time at Bili, most of the evidence for elephant killing came from Roa, far to the SW, and in the Sasa collectivity in the E (from which elephants have been almost completely extirpated, except for a small population near the Dume, which is probably the source of much of the meat arriving in Zemio). This is nowhere near Gangu. Whether or not the elephants and chimpanzees at Gangu would have done just as well without the presence of the conservation project is difficult to know. But there is no question in my mind that the poaching rate will increase dramatically with thousands of gold miners installed in the area. Why doesn't Ammann focus his anger on that outrage instead of attacking his former colleagues who have not yet given up on the Gangu herds?
The Bili chimps are actually part of what is probably the largest continuous distribution of chimpanzees left on the planet. Our survey work has shown that they are abundant over thousands of square km, and exist even within 4 km of towns like Bili. Far from the roads (at Gangu) they are relatively fearless of humans, which makes me think that they have suffered very low or non-existent hunting pressure in these areas. In areas closer to towns, they are terrified of humans. These are the chimpanzees that I was assigned to habituate by Ammann when I first joined the project in 2004 (indeed, Ammann had been trying for years to habituate them with sugar cane). For the record, based on the chimpanzees' fear of humans and continuing problems with local authorities, I (in agreement with Ammann and Wasmoeth) ceased efforts to habituate these apes in January 2005, and instead embarked on transect work. It was on this transect work that we found the naive chimpanzees and a large population of elephants, which Ammann had assured me over and over again had already been killed. This research obviously had more to do with conservation than chimpanzee behavior.
It seems to me that Ammann's tarring of his conservation partner as running a tax shelter scheme is less an effort to protect the fauna of the Bili area than a stunt to draw attention to himself. Hans Wasmoeth has made repeated trips to the area and to the seats of government in Kinshasa and Kisangani to speak up for Bili. Do I have a solution to the onslaught of commercialism that is devastating Congo's wild places as we speak? No. I am not so sure that Karl Ammann's brand of 'feel bad conservation' is having much of an effect either. But I have not given up. Comfortable though it might be to work somewhere else (where I actually could do the research I was invited in to do, without being harrassed by corrupt officials), I am going to try and stick it out in Congo, because the world needs to know what it is that we are about to lose. Ammann has not been rocking any boats in Bili for over two years now, and seems content to rain down abuse on his friends from his mountaintop in Kenya. I would encourage Ammann to concentrate his considerable intellectual powers on the real problem, which is of unbridled commercial exploitation of African wilderness, which threatens to destroy elephants, chimpanzees, and yes,ancient cultures like those of the Azande for which he seems to have so little respect.
Sincerely,
Cleve Hicks
PS. While it may be easy to blame Bili's problems on Madam Liv and her bridge, and The Wasmoeth Wildlife Foundation, might the real culprits be rich Westerners and Asians buying up gold and ivory without even wondering about the effects on rich and complex African ecosystems, and traditional African cultures?
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