Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
schools and clinics, but this is the talk of all politicians, and the Congolese have heard their share.
The other half of them feared that now he would be lost to them, just another politician accumu-
lating wealth and living luxuriously in Kinshasa, his true motivations and resources beyond their
sight. I asked him about this, and he said that for him the greatest challenge was people's impa-
tience—that a politician has to run both a sprint and a marathon, developing a long-term vision
while quickly achieving short-term goals to satisfy the needs of his constituency. He acknowledged
just how difficult the situation had become.
But what makes it more complex is that even now, having examined the beliefs and distrust of
the Congolese, we Westerners aren't necessarily well prepared for community building—for getting
accords signed, reassuring the people, and creating reserves. We are too easily fooled by those aha
moments when we think we've figured everything out and have a privileged perspective. In fact,
the Western culture of power is equally complex. If the Congolese build coalitions under the aus-
pices of big men, we individualists all want to be recognized as big men, and few of us are willing
to concede our own goals or prestige to the larger vision.
In this sense, Ian Parker's assertion that “the challenges of bonobo research call for chimpanzee
vigor” is an apt evocation of how competitive bonobo research and conservation have become.
Parker's final paragraph suggests the degree to which professional ambition can overshadow the
big picture.
“What makes humans and nonhuman primates different?” Hohmann said. “To nail this
down, you have to know how these nonhuman primates behave. We have to measure what
we can see today. We can use this as a reference for the time that has passed. There will be
no other way to do this. And this is what puts urgency into it: because there is no doubt that,
in a hundred years, there won't be great apes in the wild. It would be blind to look away
from that. In a hundred years, the forest will be gone. We have to do it now. This forest is
the very, very last stronghold. This is all we have.”
Even if a serious evaluation of conservation is beyond the scope of Parker's article, his send-
off reinforces a short-term vision of the forest. After all, if the forests are doomed by 2107, what
is the point of conservation? The forest's value beyond research is passed over in this context, and
Hohmann's dismissal (at least in Parker's portrayal) of the Congolese who live in the forest replays
an age-old challenge: foreigners are using their land while offering little in return.
Increasingly, the Congolese want power to be honored within the terms of their culture, and
conservationists to take their interests into consideration. NGOs and researchers may steamroll loc-
al leaders for the sake of their ambitions, but by supporting the Congolese and establishing shared
goals, they might inspire them to take up conservation for themselves, a step that would likely im-
prove the outcomes of research.
Albert also pointed out how rarely Westerners recognize Congolese conservation efforts and the
ways foreign conservationists have used local people to achieve their goals while giving them little
credit. The Congolese are often nameless, even invisible, in the writing about conservation. In a
National Geographic
article about great apes, published in 1992, a small add-on article mentions
Wamba:
A real drama occurred in 1987. During [Takayoshi] Kano's absence, soldiers appeared at
Wamba to capture bonobos to give to foreign dignitaries. The trackers refused to lead the
