The gorillas were seen as true innocents. But this picture got a much bigger response than anything that I’d shot before to do with people. I’d been covering the violence in Congo for a while and had taken some pretty horrific images. This photograph changed everything for me. Yet he’s still as obsessive about protecting the park as ever. He’s done it through two major wars and, last year, was shot four times. In 2008, Emmanuel de Merode was appointed head warden and has done incredible things to turn the organisation around. I suppose the only good thing to come out of this was that the world woke up to the difficulties of gorilla conservation in Congo but also to conservation in general. There was a court case and some rangers were fired. Ironically, one of the wardens was found to be behind the shootings. Killing the gorillas was a warning: stop the investigations, or more gorillas will be killed. Some rangers had been trying to find out why trees were being cut down, but the charcoal trade was making certain important people a lot of money. Charcoal requires hardwood and a lot of it can be found in the gorilla habitat. At the time, the Congolese conservation authority was a shambles: some of the rangers hadn’t been paid for months, but they still had this incredible dedication.Įventually, the shootings were linked to illegal charcoal trade going on inside the park. The gorillas have distinct personalities and are very “human” to be around. They know them as well as their own family. The park’s mountain gorillas are looked after by dedicated rangers, who spend every day with them. I filed my pictures there that same evening. We packed up and headed straight for Rwanda. At the HQ, the journalist and I were told to leave Congo immediately because the Congolese army were looking for us. There was no stopping and posing for pictures, so I was lucky to get even those. In the end, I had to quickly build a cairn of stones about a metre high to stand on, but I still only managed to take three frames before the procession passed by. It was hard to see Senkwekwe when he was up on everyone’s shoulders, so I ran ahead to find higher ground. Everyone was silent, it was very reverent. Usually, when you get a group of Africans, there is singing and laughter, but not on this occasion. It was a long walk and these are heavy animals. The villagers don’t have an easy relationship with the gorillas, who sometimes steal their crops, but they were horrified. With utmost care, all the bullet holes had been filled with leaves, as had the gorillas’ mouths, so that no fluids would leak out. The females were carried behind the silverback in a long procession. This photograph shows rangers and villagers carrying Senkwekwe to the park HQ in Rumangabo, where there is a special burial place for gorillas. One of the females was pregnant and another’s baby was assumed to have run off. The following morning, we found Senkwekwe the silverback and yet another female. It started to rain really heavily so we headed back to our camp because it wasn’t a safe area at night. We hiked into the bush with some rangers and, a few hours later, came across the first bodies. But instead, after three days, we got word a gorilla had been killed. I had gone there with a journalist for Newsweek to document what we thought would be clashes between rangers and paramilitaries. All the while, rangers were trying to protect the wildlife, including the world’s most endangered primate, the mountain gorilla. In 2007, it was a war zone: 17 paramilitary groups, as well as rebel troops and the Congolese army were all operating in the park, situated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Virunga national park is probably the most dangerous place to practise conservation in the world.
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