Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Terese Hart's blog describes the landscape in language that could possibly be taken as colonial,
referring to “the rather daunting task of leading the first mission into a truly unknown forest.” Even
the title of the Harts' 2007 grant proposal to the US Fish and Wildlife Service includes the line,
“discovery and conservation of the Tshuapa-Lomami-Lualaba Landscape.” John Scherlis explained
to me that their descriptions suggested they didn't pursue working relationships with local people
like Albert or André, who could “pull aside the curtain for them to make [the landscape] less daunt-
ing, less unknown.”
With their growing desire for agency, the Congolese are increasingly sensitive to behaviors they
perceive as colonial or autocratic. Even if Western conservationists see themselves as creating pos-
itive change, local people might view them no differently than other, more self-interested outsiders.
And while models of partnership give less prestige to individuals, their inclusive structures promise
larger, more coherent projects, with a sense of community investment that offers greater probab-
ilities of success. In
Primate Conservation Biology
, Guy Cowlishaw and Robin Dunbar write that
for community-based reserves, “one key factor contributing to their failure is that the goals of the
local community are often not the same as those of the conservationists who support the project.”
In contrast, BCI's focus on communication and community integration may be precisely what has
allowed them to produce such significant results despite the fact that their limited funding is spread
over so many areas and projects.
The public nature of the Sankuru controversy had the opposite effect of building consensus,
however, and BCI and ACOPRIK struggled to receive grants for the reserve. In 2008, the Interna-
tional Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Netherlands, part of a global alliance of sci-
entific professionals dealing with nature conservation (not to be confused with the ICCN, which is
a Congolese government institution), decided to grant BCI 84,995 Euros (about $132,000) to begin
work in the Sankuru Nature Reserve. This was designated to kick-start development and sustainab-
ility projects and would pay for further surveys, more trackers, and eco-guards to protect bonobos
and other species. The focus of the work funded by the grant would have been in the eastern part
of the reserve, where the Harts had begun working. However, shortly after an IUCN conference
in Barcelona that Michael and Sally didn't attend because of lack of funds—a meeting that Terese
Hart did attend according to several sources—the moneys were rescinded.
The rescinding of the IUCN Netherlands grant was a turning point, the halt and digging of
trenches. What could have been a success story, the creation of one of the largest reserves in Africa,
became the opposite, dividing rather than unifying people. The infighting broke both the enthusiasm
of the local people and eroded their trust. Local agency, the sense that people in a given area can
make real change, is fragile after so many years of corruption and imposition by outsiders. Some
village leaders sided with the Harts, possibly seeing their ability to get funding. And politicians
jumped on the bandwagon, realizing the value of the reserve and how they could use it to influ-
ence public opinion to their benefit. ACOPRIK struggled to maintain the enthusiasm of the villa-
gers, some of whom turned on them, resuming hunting. Others stayed loyal, bringing them orphan
bonobos whom ACOPRIK then sent to the Lola ya Bonobo sanctuary, creating a strain on everyone
involved, because the sanctuary had insufficient funds. In one year alone, ACOPRIK sent seven
orphans. André saw others, who were too sick to be sent, die in his wife's hands as she was trying
to nurse them and Sally looked for money to get them to Kinshasa.
Following the financial crisis of 2008-2009, funding became even more scarce. BCI paid track-
ers and ran projects not only in Kokolopori and Sankuru, but also six other areas under develop-
