Web charity helps save Congo's gorillas
Donations made on the Wildlife Direct website pay the salaries of the park rangers who protect the endangered apes.
from the March 9, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 4
Donations become gifts within days
"It's a lightning operation," says Mr. Muir, a Briton. "We have a reserve of cash we can draw on here in Congo, which we use to pay for whatever the person in Britain, America, or wherever has donated.
"We buy the boots in the market and hand them over straight away. We buy the food, the uniforms, the tents, and they're in the rangers' hands in a day or two. Then Wildlife Direct pays us back later."
The boost to the rangers' morale is instant.
"It's really a great thing," says Aloma. "We really wanted people to know how hard we were working, and now we see that they do. Soon Congo will become known for things other than war."
Wildlife Direct does not take a percentage of donations. They are separately funded by donors who cover administrative and running costs.
In the first 72 hours after Wildlife Direct started working with gorillas in Congo in January, the group received $38,000.
They've since found sponsors for 15 rangers, who were getting nothing before.
"We are very happy with this initial burst of funding," says Richard Leakey, chairman of Wildlife Direct, who's known for largely stamping out poaching of elephants in Kenya in the 1980s. "It is obviously crucial that the interest people have shown continues, but from what we can tell it is going to continue."
On the edge of the Virunga National Park's southern Mikeno sector is a forest clearing which, two months ago, was a forward base for militiamen loyal to Nkunda.
This week, instead of a rebel command center, the clearing has been reclaimed by the conservationists as a high-tech gorilla monitoring station.
Led by Muir and Augustin Kambale, the head ranger of a nearby patrol post, ICCN has set up tents, erected a mess hall, and cleared space for a satellite dish that runs on solar power for Internet connections.
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