In the end she followed them to the gorillas, but issued a stern warning that from this day forward neither cattle herding nor poaching would be tolerated in her part of the park.
This news must have been greeted with incredulity by the Tutsi and Batwa alike. Both peoples had ranged the Virunga slopes since time immemorial—the Tutsi using the meadowsand open woods for grazing, and the Batwa hunting everywhere for meat and hides, both for their own use and to sell to the Hutu farmers down below. Although the park had been legally off limits to hunters and herders since its establishment by the Belgians several decades earlier, the mountain people had long since worked out a comfortable arrangement whereby they supplied the poorly paid park guards with meat and milk, and sometimes cash, in exchange for immunity. Although this arrangement was so well established as to be virtually sacrosanct, Dian decided that the park rules had to be enforced. She was so adamant about this that she was soon at loggerheads with Alyette de Munck and Rosamond Carr.
“You really must consider the traditions of the local people,” Alyette advised. “They depend, you know, on what they can get from the land. You must be fair to them.”
Dian was unmoved.
“The Batwa are poachers pure and simple,” she insisted. “They set their snares everywhere for the antelope and hyrax, and that’s bad enough, God knows, but they often end up catching gorillas too. I know, I know, the adults can break free, but they can be maimed for life by the wire nooses. And we both know some poachers deliberately kill gorillas and make souvenir ashtrays out of their dried hands to sell to the horrid tourist trade, and sell skulls and heads to the so called sportsmen who want African trophies for their rec rooms. Poachers catch baby gorillas for sale to zoos, too. There
has
to be strict enforcement of the park laws or there won’t be any gorillas left, and very little else either.”
Nor did Rosamond Carr’s protests on behalf of the Tutsi cattle herders make much impression on Dian’s resolve.
“The herders ruin the habitat, Rosamond, because they have far too many cattle. They keep ten times what they need, just for prestige. There are so many up here now—they churn the ground until it looks as if it were plowed. They crush the plants the gorillas eat, shut them out of the best feeding areas, andforce them higher and higher up the slopes into the cold and wet until they get pneumonia. Those high altitudes are deadly for them. Let the Tutsi cut down their herds to only what they need and graze them outside the park.”
Her disagreements with Alyette and Rosamond forced Dian to realize that very few people placed the same paramount priority on the survival of the gorillas that she did. But she remained inflexible.
I came onto an empty poacher’s camp today. There was one flea-bitten, rack-ribbed dog guarding a lean-to fitted into a huge hagenia tree. The only other signs of life were fresh footprints that led up and down the trail. A newly killed duiker was lying on top of the roof of the lean-to. I offered the duiker to the tracker as bait to help me destroy the sixty bamboo sticks that the poachers had just brought up from below to use for setting snares. He went about the task willingly, helping me to break the heavier pieces. Once we had broken all the potential traps, I turned my attention to the inside of the lean-to and found a big bag of millet, which I threw to the four winds, a couple of hundred yards of rope especially woven for snare traps, and several
chungas
or big iron pots for cooking. Although I am not a thief at heart, I do believe in making things difficult for poachers, so I tied the
chungas
onto my African along with the snare rope and the duiker, and we left the camp apparently undetected except for the dog, who’d been regarding our doings with a malevolent eye from the nearby foliage. For all I know, the poachers were lined up
This news must have been greeted with incredulity by the Tutsi and Batwa alike. Both peoples had ranged the Virunga slopes since time immemorial—the Tutsi using the meadowsand open woods for grazing, and the Batwa hunting everywhere for meat and hides, both for their own use and to sell to the Hutu farmers down below. Although the park had been legally off limits to hunters and herders since its establishment by the Belgians several decades earlier, the mountain people had long since worked out a comfortable arrangement whereby they supplied the poorly paid park guards with meat and milk, and sometimes cash, in exchange for immunity. Although this arrangement was so well established as to be virtually sacrosanct, Dian decided that the park rules had to be enforced. She was so adamant about this that she was soon at loggerheads with Alyette de Munck and Rosamond Carr.
“You really must consider the traditions of the local people,” Alyette advised. “They depend, you know, on what they can get from the land. You must be fair to them.”
Dian was unmoved.
“The Batwa are poachers pure and simple,” she insisted. “They set their snares everywhere for the antelope and hyrax, and that’s bad enough, God knows, but they often end up catching gorillas too. I know, I know, the adults can break free, but they can be maimed for life by the wire nooses. And we both know some poachers deliberately kill gorillas and make souvenir ashtrays out of their dried hands to sell to the horrid tourist trade, and sell skulls and heads to the so called sportsmen who want African trophies for their rec rooms. Poachers catch baby gorillas for sale to zoos, too. There
has
to be strict enforcement of the park laws or there won’t be any gorillas left, and very little else either.”
Nor did Rosamond Carr’s protests on behalf of the Tutsi cattle herders make much impression on Dian’s resolve.
“The herders ruin the habitat, Rosamond, because they have far too many cattle. They keep ten times what they need, just for prestige. There are so many up here now—they churn the ground until it looks as if it were plowed. They crush the plants the gorillas eat, shut them out of the best feeding areas, andforce them higher and higher up the slopes into the cold and wet until they get pneumonia. Those high altitudes are deadly for them. Let the Tutsi cut down their herds to only what they need and graze them outside the park.”
Her disagreements with Alyette and Rosamond forced Dian to realize that very few people placed the same paramount priority on the survival of the gorillas that she did. But she remained inflexible.
I came onto an empty poacher’s camp today. There was one flea-bitten, rack-ribbed dog guarding a lean-to fitted into a huge hagenia tree. The only other signs of life were fresh footprints that led up and down the trail. A newly killed duiker was lying on top of the roof of the lean-to. I offered the duiker to the tracker as bait to help me destroy the sixty bamboo sticks that the poachers had just brought up from below to use for setting snares. He went about the task willingly, helping me to break the heavier pieces. Once we had broken all the potential traps, I turned my attention to the inside of the lean-to and found a big bag of millet, which I threw to the four winds, a couple of hundred yards of rope especially woven for snare traps, and several
chungas
or big iron pots for cooking. Although I am not a thief at heart, I do believe in making things difficult for poachers, so I tied the
chungas
onto my African along with the snare rope and the duiker, and we left the camp apparently undetected except for the dog, who’d been regarding our doings with a malevolent eye from the nearby foliage. For all I know, the poachers were lined up
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