Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
We swam, and after cooling myself, I walked across the sand, sunlight refracted up from it, blind-
ing. The clouds of the day before were gone, though cumuli gathered in the west, the sun illuminat-
ing them like mountains.
Later, back on the boat, Mwanza told us that we were nearing the Congo River and should keep
our cameras out of sight. Even though we'd bought photo permits in Kinshasa, police and military
still used photographic equipment as an excuse to extort money.
Mud-brick buildings and fishing shacks crowded the shore. Young women washed dishes and
stacked them in blue plastic tubs that they balanced on their heads to carry up the slope, beneath a
few scraggly trees, to houses with thatch roofs. Naked children, many with swollen bellies, waved,
playing in the water. In a lean-to, new pirogues were stacked, ready for sale.
We were close to Mbandaka, a place of exchange, where the fragile lines of commerce link
into the Congo River from its many tributaries. After Kokolopori and Djolu, the economy's relative
strength showed itself in the variety and brightness of people's clothes, the occasional concrete
building and corrugated roof. However, the mud houses remained dilapidated, many of the families
appeared malnourished, and men in tattered pants still paddled across the current.
As Michael, Sally, and I talked, I realized that what I wanted to know—what I hadn't yet asked
them—was how much of their success depended on their charisma, and what would happen without
them. Would their achievements vanish once the two of them were gone?
“If there's anything we've done,” Sally told me, “it's build a team. If we die tomorrow, the team
is still there—Albert, André, Mwanza . . .”
The list went on, dozens of Congolese educated in conservation and passionate about their her-
itage. And from what I could see, she was right. I'd met a number of Congolese working with BCI
and Vie Sauvage, each of whom deserved to have his or her story told.
Over the last decade, Sally had seen the growing awareness of the Congolese and how some
local cultures were shifting to renew traditional concepts of conservation. They were increasingly
valuing their land for what could be sustained rather than the material exploitation that had dom-
inated their country for more than a century. In a sense, they were on the heels of the vision that
underpinned the West's economy: thinking of wealth in terms of investment.
If we need a PhD in science in order to protect what little wildlife and few rainforests remain,
then the numbers of those who can change the situation on the ground are severely limited. The
hard science of animal behavior, as Dian Fossey herself realized after Digit's death, will not save
wildlife from poachers. Even though the government has banned the hunting of many endangered
species, it cannot enforce the laws. Only the local people and their leaders can.
Michael, Sally, and I stopped talking. The Congo River opened before us, two or three times as
wide as the tributary we were on, and staring across it, I realized that the far shore was one long
tear-shaped island after another. I had seen this stretch on a map, the river broken into as many as
six or eight channels, two or three of them nearly a mile wide.
Just beyond the confluence, we stopped at a military checkpoint. A handful of scruffy men, ap-
parently soldiers, commandeered some gasoline and demanded ten dollars. Richard disembarked to
show them our passports, and we sat in the boat as the sun descended through the clouds that had
been building on the horizon. Spokes of light shone up through layer after layer, the forest molten
gold at the far shore. The river turned silver, tiny fish jumping for insects.
When we got our passports back and pulled out, a soldier leaped into a light pirogue and grabbed
the rear of our boat, insisting that he hadn't been given enough money. The boatmen yelled at him
