An October seizure of illegal parrots in Sankuru Province.
The surge in parrot confiscations continues. Six more seizures occurred since July, resulting in 114 parrots brought to us for rehabilitation in just 3 months. The most recent was in the adjacent province of Sankuru.
Sankuru parrots are brought by motorbike, here crossing a bridge in Maniema on the last leg of their trip towards Kindu.
Have all these confiscations had an impact? Is the trade being squeezed?
The Sankuru parrots’ travel cages were opened in Kindu. They arrived at night
On arrival the parrots are put in larger holding cages at our Kindu office, or the “Annex”.
The aviaries of the big traders in Kindu, that had over 500 parrots when we started, are now empty. Theo the representative of the trading group has gone to Goma and been there for months.
Theo holding a decoy bird used for captures.
Aime, another big trader, Aimé, is no longer visible.
Aimé, in Kindu a year ago.
But the trade continues. It is more discreet – it is underground – but it continues.
We must ratchet up control. That means more confiscations. But there also must be Arrests!
The head prosecutor for Maniema Province oversees the competence to arrest troughout his territory.
Since independence, the DR Congo has an environmental enforcement structure in place to assure that officers, spread throughout the country, are ready to react to natural resource crime.
Although parks are controlled by armed guards from ICCN (Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation), 85% of the DRCongo’s territory is outside of protected areas, where ICCN guards are not present and are not authorized to act. This area, too, is presumably monitored.
With one of our P3C core group, Leon Salumu, and two park guards in the Lomami National Park patrol post of Katopa.
The vast forests, savannas and wetlands outside parks have no armed guards….but there is a network of environmental officers in every territory that should be able to arrest anyone involved in the parrot trade.
The coordinator of the environment for Maniema has authority over this network of officers. The coordinator himself is answerable to the national Secretary General of the Environment.
With an enforcement network in place, why has this trade gotten so wildly out of control?
Unfortunately there are some blatant shortcomings:
- Most of the environmental officers don’t get paid – or very little. As an authority at the provincial coordination regretfully informed me, many get nothing and those that have managed to get “mechanized” on the paylist, barely get $100/mo;
The provincial prosecutor (center in grey) with the environmental officers of Kibombo territory and their provincial boss in blue hat.
- If they come across a load of illegal parrots, what can they do? No telephone, no telephone network, impossible roads to reach someone higher in their hierarchy, and no means of transportation.
Our project, P3C, pays transport for all confiscation cases once brought to our attention. We paid the transport costs for the Sankuru parrots that are being crossed here from Sankuru to Maniema in a dugout.
- The final indignity – the officers have the responsibility to control natural-resource crime, but usually not the legal credentials to do so.
The last issue is one we could help with. We paid for the prosecutor to go to Kibombo for a training and accreditation of the officers. It was fun, rewarding and greatly appreciated:
The classroom filled with attentive environmental officers and a P3C core group member, François Bahininwa, center front.
The prosecutor congratulates some police whose accreditation was from another province and who took advantage of the training for environmental officers and then were swore in.
And we took advantage of the training to make certain all law enforcement officers and the courts in Kibombo were aware of the new law making parrot trapping, trading and commerce illegal throughout Maniema.
So, Are we having an impact? Are we making a difference for parrots? Within the core group we agree “Yes, we are making a difference”, but not enough, for long enough…not yet. There is too much money in this illegal trade for it to quickly disappear. But we are optimistic and determined.
