7 September 2004

A death-defying minibus ride through Uganda, three hours of bumping along the Peace Road shadowed by boys with AK47 toys and a gruelling motorbike ride to find the Ituri Forest deep in the heart of the Congo River basin feature in the next free seminar from the Key Centre for Tropical Wildlife Management at Charles Darwin University.

L_R Wildlife Conservation Country Director for the DRC, Terese Hart with Penny van Oosterzee in the Congo

Penny van Oosterzee, Honorary Fellow of Charles Darwin University and Managing Director of EcOz Environmental Services, together with Noel Preece, PhD student at Charles Darwin University and also a Director of EcOz, present their observations from a recent research visit to the Congo.

Award Winning author, Ms van Oosterzee, is currently writing a book about globalisation and its impacts on tropical forests and, among other things, her research focuses on the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia. She and Mr Preece were invited by the Wildlife Conservation Society's country director to visit the Democratic Republic of Congo earlier this year.

“We were amongst the first people of European extraction for more than six years to cross the border from Uganda to reach this area,” Ms van Oosterzee explained.

“The Congo is off the tourist map due to eight years of internecine wars, and is in a deplorable economic state.

“There is little to no infrastructure, the health system is non-existent, education is basic at best, everyone has lost loved-ones, many people have been raped and mutilated, and yet there is astonishing spirit and some high achievements in this region.”

“We travelled to research sites where some long-term studies have been carried out on flora and fauna like the Okapi. Bantu and Mbuti researchers, funded by the Wildlife Conservation Society, have mapped and researched a small part of this forest, despite some of their fellows being killed in the wars and their resources being burnt and pillaged.”

The Ituri Forest covers 62,900 sq km – making it more than three times bigger than Kakadu National Park. The World Heritage Okapi Wildlife Reserve, which is inhabited by traditional nomadic pygmy Mbuti and Efe hunters and covers about one-fifth of the Ituri Forest, was inscribed as World Heritage in Danger in 1997 due to illegal mining, poaching of animals and armed conflict which led to the looting of conservation facilities and evacuation of volunteers.

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