diplomacy&development

The fishing village of Vitshumbi lies on the southern shore of Lake Edward in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), about 25 km west of the Ugandan border and 200 or so south of the Equator. Economic life in the village revolves around the local fishery, and both the fishery and the village fall within the boundaries of Africa’s oldest park, Virunga National Park (Parc National des Virunga, PNVi). Vitshumbi pre-dates the park, having been settled before its creation in 1925, when PNVi was first established as Albert National Park by the country’s colonial administrators.   More recently, the people of Vitshumbi have experienced a number of turbulent changes. Over the past 20 years, violent conflicts, both local and regional, have engulfed the area, and rebel groups, park guards and armed forces often fight for control of the surrounding territory. The village itself has grown dramatically, as more and more fishers and their families arrive in town to vie for an increasingly ...

Virunga National Park (Parc National des Virunga, in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is Africa’s oldest and most diverse park. Stretching along the Congolese border with Uganda and Rwanda, PNVi has more bird, mammal and reptile species than any other on the continent. But for the past two decades, the park and the surrounding area in North Kivu province have experienced near-constant violent conflict. For the local population, the result has been widespread suffering: death, rape, displacement, sickness and starvation. Between August 1998 and April 2007, more people died from this conflict than from any war since the Second World War. Most of the casualties were civilians, and almost half children. Beyond the humanitarian crisis, conflict has threatened the species, habitats and communities that depend on PNVi for their survival. The park is in crisis: its governance systems have collapsed; its boundaries are encroached upon by the surrounding local an...

Virunga was the first national park on the continent of Africa. Today the Virunga National Park of the DR Congo is part of a three countries’ (including Rwanda and Uganda) group of protected areas covering the Virunga mountains, one of the planet’s hotspots with mountain gorillas as flagship species. For much of its long history, though, Virunga National Park has been severely threatened by armed conflict.  Thanks to the dedication of the park’s rangers and wardens Virunga has been able to survive. Thereby the cooperation of the Virunga Foundation with the governmental parks authority ICCN played a key role. Their work to provide unique opportunities for tourists to experience the natural wonders of the park made travellers not only financing the management and infrastructure of the national park but also triggers other financial contributions the surrounding communities benefit from.  The vision is that Virunga becomes one of the world’s greatest travel desti...

The Democratic Republic of Congo has huge potential and resources to facilitate the energy transition. The equivalent of fossil energy is undoubtedly renewable energy but this clean energy is much more advantageous especially as it has many protective virtues in terms of ecological balance and environmental safety. With the two years of collapsing oil prices, natural gas and coal triggered the dramatic downsizing of industries, renewable energies are booming. Investment in clean energy broke new records in 2015 and is now twice as much as global fossil fuel financing. And the most seriously affected is coal. If we want to avoid catastrophic climate change, we must quickly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Everything needs to be done to move to the energy transition to a 100% renewable energy-powered world. Many countries are already developing policies to design and implement this transition, promoting offshore renewable sources such as solar, wind, hydropower, bi...

When you walk in the area of Matadi Mayo precisely in the City Pumbu, you will feel like being in a new world safe and clean, just because of such extraordinary green places that can make you dream a little bit as someone belonging to a world with clean and pure fresh air. I have had the chance to visit this place and I made in my mind this idea of a green world without Carbone emissions and without all kinds of activities that can destroy the atmosphere and environment where we live is absolutely possible to realize by creating a kind of policy that can help develop people but at the same time making them know that they have best place to maintain both for the environment reasons and also for themselves. We all know that there places where the Carbone emission is the song of everyday and it seems like it is not possible to stop completely this situation but we can balance the emissions of   Co2 by having places where there are absolutely not activities which have a natu...