In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN) is campaigning for the inter – ministerial decree specifically approving the capture and killing of certain protected species. Correspondence was sent to various authorities, including the Deputy Prime Minister and the Congolese Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development.
as reported from Kinshasa, Patient Ligodi
This decree was signed a year ago, but the ICCN only found out last month. According to the Minister of the Environment at the time, the measure was taken to save the Treasury. That which shocks the defenders of nature.
For 40 years, Congolese law has banned the hunting of protected species such as mountain gorillas, bonobos, savannah elephants, okapis or black rhinos.
According to the ICCN, the ministerial assessment undermines the government’s efforts, which are struggling to meet the requirements of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
Promoting Tourism to Generate the Demanded Jean Joseph Mapilanga Wa Tsaramu, Head of the Technical and Scientific Department of the ICCN, fights against the hunting of protected animals and advocates ecotourism. “If you leave this pangolin, if you leave this hippopotamus in its natural environment and you develop the mechanisms of tourism, there will be a series of direct or indirect incomes without cutting off the head of the specimen and finding these pieces in a pot.”
The ICCN is trying to use all its weight to have the ministerial declaration annulled. “It is the ideal, the desire, the desire: to succeed in repealing this decree and finding other ways.”
The law at the Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development was changed in April, hoping that protected animals defend the cancellation and be heard by the new team.
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