Live From the Congo: Will A ‘Notoriously Violent’ Poacher and Rapist Hamper Elephant Ivory Project’s Efforts to Stop Poaching?

It’s been a fortunate few days. We arrived in Kinshasa on Monday, exhausted from 36 hours of transit, and found the Congo just as hot as we left it two years ago. On Tuesday morning, we met with Dr. Teresa Hart, a 30-year veteran of conservation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Teresa first came to the country as a Peace Corp volunteer in 1974. She’s now in her tenth year studying bonobos, an ape found only in the DRC, in a 25,000-square mile block of forest known as TL2. The region is an elephant sanctuary on paper, but animals are disappearing there faster than ever.

“Research here leads to advocacy because it’s all being destroyed,” says Hart.

Congo: An Elephant War Zone

The poaching of elephants in Democratic Republic of Congo has “dramatically increased” since 2006, a group of researchers said. The findings were based on data gathered from 11 parks and reserves throughout Congo and compiled by a group of American and Canadian researchers affiliated with the TL2 conservation project in central Congo.

Most elephant deaths came at the hands of organized armed groups, the researchers said in a statement on March 16. Congo is recovering from more than a decade of war that left millions dead, and armed groups in the east of the country still use national reserves as hideouts.“The large scale commercial based poaching exploded in 2009, and is comparable to levels in the 1980s which led to a major decline of Congo’s elephants,” the researchers said.

Congo’s elephant population is now around 20,000, down from an estimated 100,000 a decade ago, the statement said.

The rare Congo forest Elephants

Ranger displaying confiscated ivory

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