Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
higher ground, and as we walked we had a view over the forest, the dark, misted curves of immense
treetops set against the distance like mountains.
“Part of building social capital,” Sally told me, “is maintaining good relationships with chiefs
and officials, and showing them that we respect their authority. If they understand our projects and
goals, then the community is more likely to understand and support us.”
“It must get tiring,” I said. At that point, after the day's activities and the constant human inter-
actions, I was ready for bed.
She laughed, her voice a little hoarse. “Sometimes it gets to be a little intense, but I enjoy talking
to people. And it makes things happen here. It's what's got us this far.”
We stayed with the administrator for an hour, introducing ourselves and discussing regional pro-
jects, from those on the reserve to initiatives in Djolu and at the technical college. Even hours later,
after we'd returned to the Vie Sauvage headquarters and the generator had roared to life, people
came to the door, pausing at the edge of the light, looking in, letting their eyes adjust as their smiles
took shape and they called out Sally and Michael's names.
Several of them ran their own conservation areas that they had modeled on Kokolopori, getting
trackers and eco-guards to volunteer with the promise of eventual employment once there was fund-
ing. Whenever possible, BCI had supported them with modest amounts.
Michael showed them photos he had downloaded of eco-lodges around the world, explaining
possibilities for bringing tourism to the area. Local conservationists and villagers gathered around
the table, staring at the computer screen. He told me that many people here believe a drab, American
ranch house with tiny windows would appeal to vacationing foreigners, and he wanted to dispel this.
He brought up images of open-air bamboo buildings, elevated bungalows with wooden floors and
palm-thatch roofs. It might take another decade, but if the communities protected their forests and
bonobos, ecotourism could fund them far better than agriculture or logging. As the men hunched
around Michael's laptop, two teenage boys lingered in the door, listening and watching.
The headquarters doubled as a guesthouse for BCI and reserve visitors, and I went to my room,
hardly bigger than its cot. Eight large cockroaches clung to the wall, as well as two gray spiders as
big as my palm, with eyes that glinted like a single diamond when I shone my headlamp on them. I
asked the building's keeper about getting a mosquito net, and he told me there were no mosquitoes
at the moment, but I insisted, not worried about mosquitoes either.
I crawled inside the net, tucked its edges under the thin foam mattress, and lay down. I was ex-
hausted, but the day's images kept coming back: the battered Land Cruiser, the fragile, makeshift
bridges, the dire poverty. I wondered how much worse it must have been after the war, and how
much effort must have been required to work in a place where the human need felt this suffocat-
ing. Many of us imagine carrying out dramatic changes in impoverished places, but few have the
patience for the small, time-consuming, and seemingly endless details that make it possible.
I forced myself to stop thinking and drifted in and out of sleep for hours while Michael and
Sally stayed with the others, their talk and laughter resonating late into the night.
