Why Congo’s Most Famous National Park Is Betting Big On Cryptocurrencies

As such, parks are an important source of charcoal. Makara Even though farming, fishing, hunting and logging are all illegal. Park resources are regularly stripped. Between 2001 and his 2020, Virunga has lost almost 10% of its tree cover. De Merode estimates that Virunga’s trees and ivory are lost at $170 million each year. But the options for the locals are to be unable to pay their local warlords, or starving.

“Congo is a perplexing place to make moral judgments,” he said. Ghost of King Leopold, chronicles the harrowing 19th-century rule of the Belgian monarchs. The Congo is further complicated by “its vastness, its people who speak hundreds of languages, and its colonization with the aim of extracting wealth”. It is very difficult to have.”

Congo has about the same number of displaced people as Ukraine and has been in decades of conflict despite decades of UN peacekeeping. Most of the profits stolen from the park go to armed rebel groups. Some locals attend because they don’t have better options. There are also relics from past wars, most notably his 1994 Rwandan genocide. Others may be associated with Islamic State. The largest is M23, a Tutsi-led group so armed that the United Nations says it is backed by Rwanda. (Rwanda denies this, but its economy is heavily dependent on Congolese resources.)

As a result, Virunga may be the only UNESCO site with regular staff burials. Over 200 rangers have been killed since 1996. Cherubin Norayambaje, who spent eight years as a ranger, calls it “the most dangerous job in the world.”

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Virunga’s approximately 800 rangers, including about 35 women, often encounter armed rebels and civilians farming and living illegally in the park. Many locals don’t even know the boundaries of the park, added Samson Rukira, an activist in the nearby town of Rutulu. Conservation needs community involvement to solve the problem, he said. Can not Please have a dialogue. ”

De Merode sympathizes with community complaints that individuals are being denied access to the park’s vast wealth. “Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people suffer the short-term costs of turning this park into a positive asset. Failure to do so will do more harm than good,” he said. he says. “But we strongly believe that this ecosystem, this park, can be turned around.”

His plan to do so hinges on three hydroelectric power plants that the park has opened since 2013 in Matebe, Mutwanga and Rubiro. The fourth is under construction. There is a theory that if you can power your home, you don’t need to cut down trees for cooking. Power supports new jobs and businesses, such as coffee he coop and chia seed production. And, of course, Bitcoin mining.

“That is the misconception that we most want to correct: Virunga is only wildlife,” continues de Merode. “No, it’s about community Use wildlife. Our role is to facilitate it. “There is no way to practice conservation without local support in one of the world’s most troubled countries,” he says.