Translated from French by an automated online translation service, so please excuse the roughness. See link for original. Thank you to Anne Dillon for volunteering time to finding these French articles and doing the online translating.
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Twenty elephants were slaughtered in the last three months by armed uncivils in the future park Lomani in Opala territory (Tshopo). And that poaching is increasing due to a lack of effective measures to protect these wildlife species. A delegation including officials of the park and Tropenbos NGOs went to Opala to raise awareness against the massacre of elephants.
Just for the last two weeks, three elephants were killed. The chief director of the future park of the Lomani, Didier Biaombe, denounced this “organized poaching.”
In response, he advocates recruit eco-guards among young residents: “The first reason for my mission is educating young people, who must commit as park wardens. We need to recruit hundreds of young people who will be trained so that they can secure themselves the park.”
These eco-guards will be paid, he assured, so that they work in the same forest “to secure the resources which are theirs and which are threatened by uncivil from elsewhere. Many (of them) come Maniema, Kasai and Ecuador; some are children Opala.”
The scope of the future park of Lomani in the Opala territory is estimated at 800 km², 20% of which cover part of the forest in the province of Maniema. According to the ICCN, the part of the park bounded between Tshuapa rivers, Lomami, and Lualaba hosts includes:
population “important” to bobonos
a new species of monkey called LESULA
okapi
hippos
forest vegetation varieties “surprising and mysterious”
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