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 10/10 Excellent --- dailynightly.msnbc.msn.com http://dailynightly.msnbc.msn.com/rss.aspx
| The NBC Nightly News blog ... |
Friday, April 25, 2008 --- 71 days ago http://dailynightly.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/04/25/945868.aspx
| By Justin Balding, NBC News producer
Editor's note: Ann Curry's report on saving the Congo's gorillas airs tonight on the broadcast.
"My director died immediately," he recalled.
During his 17 years as a park ranger in eastern DR Congo's Virunga National Park, Pierre Kakule had many close calls, but none as close as the time he was riding with his boss. Their car hit a land-mine, and though Kakule survived, his forehead is still decorated with scars caused by the blast. In other instances he was involved in gun battles. And he has lost many friends and relatives.
Some 120 park rangers in the last 10 years have been killed trying to keep the war-torn Virunga National Park safe from poachers and armed groups looking to make money out of killing animals. Antelopes, buffaloes and elephants are all routinely slaughtered, their "bushmeat" sold in nearby towns and villages. But most sickening of all to Kakule is the killing of gorillas.
The gorilla is not just an iconic living ancestor to him, but a part of the human family tree nearing extiction. In the last two decades the worldwide gorilla population has been cut in half -- mainly by by deforestation and disease. In eastern Congo, the gorillas' plight is complicated by a 10-year war which has left hundreds of thousands of people displaced and desperate for money and food.
Kakule says he understood the answer to Congo's conservation problem was much more ... |
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