Report from the front-line of conservation

M23 also known as the Congolese Revolutionary Army, is a Congolese Rwandan-backed rebel paramilitary group.

Working in conservation is not always an easy job. Sometimes it is actually dangerous.

During my internship with the Uganda Wildlife Conservation Center in 2014, I was assigned my first real job.

I was assigned to a research group who were collecting data on Cercopithecus kandti (the golden monkey). We were to observe, monitor, take a census, and attempt habituation—that is, to help the animals become familiar with human voices and presence.

At 6 a.m. we were given a breakfast of chapati, a tortilla-like bread, and tea. At 7:30, we took backpacks with equipment, including two-way radios, notepads, pens, GPS monitors, and jackets. There were no roads. We hiked from headquarters approximately sixteen kilometers (twelve miles). This area was completely uninhabited and largely unexplored. We found the monkeys and began our fieldwork.

Two hours later, we heard voices in an area where no people should be. Our senior habituator left to find the source. What he discovered were 30 armed M23 soldiers in full uniform marching through the area.

We immediately threw ourselves into the bushes and stayed quiet. Our team leader went out of hearing range and radioed the commander of Mgahinga Gorilla National Park. The military enforcement team arrived four hours later and asked for our assistance in locating the rebels’ trail. The insurgents were gone, but we recovered nine guns and 63 pairs of army uniforms. We carried all of this back with us on empty stomachs. We finally ate at 10:00 p.m.—silverfish (mukene) and posho.

Our incident report prompted management to recruit and deploy more rangers into our national parks.