Green Heart Films leave the UK for Kinshasa the capital of the DRC this Friday the 12th of October to begin a six month journey within the region of the Congo Basin. The first objective in Kinshasa will be to follow up on reports that illegal ivory from the Salonga national park is being openly sold within this city’s markets.
After visiting Kinshasa we then travel up to Goma to visit the Virunga national park where conflicts and gas and oil exploration are beginning to pose a serious threat to this World Heritage site and one of Africa’s first national park.
From Virunga we plan to visit Epulu where a recent attack by a militia known as the Simba has destroyed this conservation project, the stations buildings were burnt down and all the captive Okapis were killed and during the course of the attack two park rangers and the wife of another was also killed during a firefight between the rebels and the park rangers.
The forest of the Ituri surrounding the Okapi Epulu research station contain rich alluvial gold deposits found within the Ituri river – the conservation region is also home to forest elephants who are being relentlessly poached for their tusks which are in greater demand than ever by new emerging Asian economies such as China.
The forests of the Ituri have been described as fabulously wealthy but a mirrade of militias and various rebel groups along with regional powers are all vying for influence !!!!
Gas and oil has been discovered within Lake Edward while gold Bauxite and iron ore plus alluvial diamonds have also been discover across this remote region of the DRC. Presently China is constructing an all weathered highway from the ports of East Africa that pass through Kenya and on into Uganda to the border town of Fort Portal and across the DRC frontier to Beni and through the ancient equatorial rain-forests of the Ituri to the central DRC city of Kisangani. This highway will serve as a catalyst to opening up this forested region to commercial exploitation of not only this regions tropical timber but also the rich mineral deposit as yet still still not fully assessed.
Economic development within this remote region will most likely be at the expense of this forested regions indigenous peoples and the regions unique wildlife much of which is presently being hunted for bush meat and is rapidly disappearing from a region once fabled for it unique species and it’s former ancient indigenous Mbuti Pygmy nomadic hunter gatherers.
