The aim is to restore a balance missing from the ecosystem. ‘It is one of the largest rhino translocations in history,’ says John Vogel, director of research and development at the park, of the plan to introduce at least 50 rhinos to the DRC in the next few years. They differ slightly, with the southern whites somewhat larger and hairier than their northern cousins. To reintroduce the animals to Garamba, the park has used a different subspecies, bringing southern white rhinoceros from South Africa. But for now, it is a species on the very edge of extinction. The only two surviving northern white rhinos in the world, both female, are currently kept in a private reserve in Kenya, with experiments underway to try to ensure the survival of the species using embryos created from their oocytes and sperm previously collected from males. During these chaotic years, 1,000 rhino horns, prepared for transport and sale, were discovered in the nearby town of Faradje. The last lonely tracks in the dirt were noted in 2006. ![]() Aggressive poaching has declined, after traumatic years in which Garamba’s rhinos were wiped out and the numbers of Kordofan giraffes and elephants were decimated.įrom a potential peak population of around 1,300 animals in the 1960s, the last sighting of a northern white rhino in Garamba was in 2005. The park headquarters itself was even briefly occupied by the dissident Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (ADFL) in 1997.Īs war and displacements tear other provinces apart, thankfully these tragedies seem to be a memory in the remote Haut-Uélé (although the UK Government still advises against all travel to the area). The DRC has been trapped in these vicious conflicts since the 1994 Rwandan genocide, which destabilised the entire region. The Ugandan guerrillas of the LRA also operated here, massacring and abducting civilians en masse. It is on the border with South Sudan, where, historically, armed groups have raided across the border. In areas that are weakly governed, the organisation has taken on full management of the parks, bringing resources and expertise. Created in 1938, the park is run by the African Parks network in partnership with the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN).Īfrican Parks (whose president is the Duke of Sussex) manages protected areas in 12 African countries with the aim of restoring and conserving wildlife in various ecoregions. It is a beautiful and delicate ecosystem now isolated from the chaos of the other provinces of the DRC. Garamba National Park is situated in the province of Haut-Uélé, in the very north-east of the country. ![]() Conflict and poaching had taken a heavy toll. The guerrillas of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) took root in the northern DRC, having been driven out of Uganda.Īmid these loud upheavals, the northern white rhinoceros quietly ceased to exist in the wild. In the east, an armed rebel group called the National Congress for the Defence of the People was formed, initiating conflicts that continue to displace civilians to this day. It was a tumultuous year for the country, the second largest in Africa: the first fractious elections since the fall of the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko had taken place under the nervous gaze of the international community. Rhinoceros footprints were last seen in the DRC back in 2006. ![]() At last, they have arrived in their new home. The temptation of a hat waving on an outstretched arm is not enough to beckon him out, so a conservationist hangs down and pushes his enormous bulk out from behind. One male, perhaps a little ambivalent about his new nationality, stays put in his crate. One by one, their gates fly up and the rhinos lumber out. The trucks drive three hours through the jungle to bring these megafauna to Garamba National Park, and the crates are unloaded into a small enclosure. Inside each is one of the arrivals who will start new lives in the DRC – eight white rhinoceros. Eight huge boxes, weighing a ton apiece, slide out and are loaded on to trucks. A cargo plane, from South Africa, slows to a halt on a dusty airstrip in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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