Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
central east, and the government held south and west—and the best way to keep the bonobo habitat
intact would be a peace park, a protected area sited to include contiguous parts of more than one
country. That bonobos might serve as a symbol of peace in a war-torn region also rang true. The
return to Wamba would be just the first step in gathering information for the future Bonobo Peace
Forest. But with war continuing and the national infrastructure in shambles, a year of planning and
networking in both the Congo and the United States would be essential to get the team there safely.
Since 1994, Sally had remained in contact with Brigadier General William Stevens, and in 1999,
he'd become chairman of BCI's board. He introduced her to the DRC's ambassador to the United
States and offered to assist with security for the National Geographic expedition and accompany her
to Kinshasa. Through BCI's board member Zihindula Mulegwa, known as Z, she arranged a meet-
ing for herself and General Stevens with President Joseph Kabila. She'd met Z, a part-time pastor
and journalist with a degree in conflict resolution, at the Congolese Pentecostal church in Arling-
ton, Virginia, and he'd told her that he and Joseph Kabila were friends. When Kabila took power,
he requested that Z return to the DRC and become the presidential spokesperson. By then, Z had
been on BCI's board for over two years.
Sally and General Stevens arranged to fly to Kinshasa to meet with Kabila, but the day she was
supposed to leave, in June 2001, one of her close friends was killed in a motorcycle accident. Sally
missed her flight and arrived late in Kinshasa. Stevens and Z had met with Kabila and received an
enthusiastic reception. Months later, when Sally returned to Washington, the Congolese ambassad-
or would request her aid in preparing the first public reception for Kabila in the United States.
In the DRC, Sally began setting up the National Geographic expedition, hiring BCI's first em-
ployee, Jean-Marie Benishay, a young man who'd written his university thesis on bonobo social
structure. Her primary Congolese partner for the trip was Dr. Mwanza Ndunda, then director gener-
al of the Congolese government's ecological research institute, CREF. Unlike other protected areas,
which were administered by the ICCN (the government's park service) and the Ministry of the En-
vironment, Wamba was a scientific reserve, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Scientific Re-
search and legally administered by CREF as part of the Luo Scientific Reserve.
Mwanza had devoted his life to conservation, but the chaos and corruption of the Mobutu years
and the ensuing wars had frustrated his ambitions. He studied biology and conservation at the
University of Kisangani before receiving a scholarship to do a PhD in the USSR. He recalls arriving
in Moscow in December and almost getting back on the plane to go home, but he stayed, doing his
research in Moldova, learning Russian, and writing his dissertation—in Russian—on species rein-
troduction after he successfully reacclimatized Japanese deer. This was in the late sixties and early
seventies, and to support himself, he would travel to West Germany and buy blue jeans, then sell
them in Chisinau; a few pairs allowed him to study for months.
After his return to the Congo, he translated his dissertation into French and was hired to work
with Japanese researchers studying gorillas in the Kivus. He went to Japan twice for training and
colloquia before becoming the general director of CREF and being stationed in Équateur, where he
worked with both Kano and Furuichi, returning on several occasions to Japan. But under Mobutu,
CREF's funding never arrived. He and his researchers were barely able to live off their salaries,
and the moneys allotted to science were taken by corrupt bureaucrats. The situation became much
worse during the wars, years that he spent fishing and planting cassava so that he could feed his
family. With the country reunited, his goal was to build CREF into the scientific institution it was
meant to be, and given BCI's mandate to develop local leadership and resources, Sally saw CREF
