Congo troops poach hippos, elephants: environmental group

Yahoo News 7 Apr 10;

KINSHASA (AFP) – DR Congo troops last month illegally killed animals including seven hippos and five elephants in Virunga National Park, Africa's oldest, a Congolese environmental protection group said.

Innovation for the Development and Protection of the Environment (IDPE) said that from March 3-28 government troops killed the hippos and elephants as well as five antelopes, four baboons, three chimpanzees and two buffalo.

All hunting and fishing is banned in Virunga National Park, which is a UNESCO world heritage site covering an area of 790,000 hectares (1.95 million acres) in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The soldiers "use their wives and cousins to sell the meat" in villages near the park, the IDPE said in a report that included photos of decomposing elephant carcasses.

The troops resort to poaching, the IDPE quoted the commander of the army's 15th Brigade that is allegedly behind most of the killings as saying, because of the inadequacy of their food rations.

They have also developed an illegal ivory business in Nord-Kivu province, where Virunga is located, with traders buying ivory from troops in nearby Goma and Butembo which is then shipped to China or Dubai, the IDPE said.

The group proposed demilitarising the park which lies on the Ugandan border.

According to UNESCO, the park comprises an outstanding diversity of habitats, ranging from swamps and steppes to the snowfields of Rwenzori at an altitude of over 5,000 metres (16,400 feet), and from lava plains to savannahs on the slopes of volcanoes.

Around 200 of the world's last 750 mountain gorillas are found in the park, some 20,000 hippopotamuses live in the rivers and birds from Siberia spend the winter there, the United Nations organisation says on its website.