Exposing Atrocities, Blogs Give Wildlife Warriors Instant SOS

[Guest guest]

Exposing Atrocities, Blogs Give Wildlife Warriors Instant SOS

James Owen

for National Geographic News

December 5, 2006

 

Part of the Digital Places Special News Series

 

Getting the message out isn't easy on the front lines of wildlife conservation.

 

News crews and other media are seldom on hand to spread the word of efforts to

save endangered animals in remote tropical regions often ravaged by war,

poverty, and disease.

 

Now conservationists are taking matters into their own hands, via their

keyboards, in harnessing the power of the blog to attract headlines and much

needed support.

 

One such blog, from central Africa, made the news last month.

 

In a posting on Congo Rangers—a blog for wildlife workers in the Democratic

Republic of Congo (DRC)—rangers alerted the world to the massacre of hundreds

of hippos by armed militiamen in Virunga National Park.

 

(Read " Hippos Butchered by the Hundreds in Congo Wildlife Park " [October 24,

2006].)

 

The posting also revealed the cost of the slaughter, and quickly. Results of an

aerial census of the park's threatened hippo population were posted on the Web

the same day the census was carried out.

 

Congo Rangers is one of a number of blogs that appear on WildlifeDirect, an

initiative set up by the Africa Conservation Fund, based in Kenya and the DRC

(Africa map).

 

The Web site provides a platform for conservationists working to protect African

wildlife and wildlands under difficult and often dangerous conditions.

 

" We believe that the Internet provides an unprecedented means of bringing the

remarkable efforts of African conservationists to the attention of the world, "

WildlifeDirect's director, Emmanuel de Merode, said.

 

Lives at Risk

 

Among those efforts is the work of wildlife personnel on the ground who risk

their lives daily, according to Congo Rangers blogger Robert Muir of Germany's

Frankfurt Zoological Society.

 

" It is vital that we try and give the rangers a voice, as their stories are not

so much forgotten as never actually told, " Muir said.

 

These rangers, he added, are " the last line of defense between hippos,

elephants, [and] mountain gorillas and hundreds of militia, armed to the teeth

and intent on killing the few animals that remain. "

 

More than a hundred rangers have been killed in recent years in Virunga Park, a

nearly two-million-acre (7.9-million-hectare) protected area.

 

The Congo Rangers blog, Muir said, " is a living record that gives these

remarkable individuals an identity. "

 

Conservationists elsewhere are likewise taking to the blogosphere to raise

awareness.

 

The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation UK (BOS) runs a blog from the Nyaru

Menteng Orangutan Rehabilitation Center in the Indonesian section of the island

of Borneo (see Indonesia map.)

 

The brainchild of BOS director Michelle Desilets, the Voices From the Field blog

aims to get across " some of the daily trials and triumphs of working to save

orangutans from extinction, " she said.

 

One recent posting, reporting the impact of forest fires raging in the region

last month, attracted tens of thousands of U.S. dollars in emergency donations,

she noted. (See " Orangutans Displaced, Killed by Indonesian Forest Fires "

[November 17, 2006].)

 

" Within 24 hours of the blog going out, we had 50 more men on the ground, " she

said.

 

" These very orangutans are alive today because of the power of the blog. It's a

modern-day version of sending out an SOS, " Desilets said.

 

Morale Boost

 

Giving conservation workers the chance to tell their own stories also helps to

raise morale, Desilets pointed out.

 

" Our staff until now has felt very isolated and often bemoaned the fact that the

outside world just didn't understand or care about what they were trying to

achieve, " she said.

 

The blogs serve as a line of communication for personnel working in remote parts

of the rain forest, she explained, allowing the public to get to know individual

staff members and rescued animals alike.

 

Despite the limited English skills of the Indonesian team, the postings are

sometimes extremely poignant, Desilets added.

 

She quoted from a recent blog report from the region affected by the forest

fires: " On Monday, we got one more orangutan. Her feet burned very bad. At

Tuesday morning, the reporter from National Geographic come with one red-leaf

monkey … infant baby. She looks dying. I was crying and asked: Why? "

 

Those who train conservationists and others who work in environmental sciences

say blogging should be taught as an important communication tool.

 

Researchers at Oxford University's Centre for the Environment in England

emphasized the point in an article published in the journal Science earlier this

year.

 

Authors Alison Ashlin and Richard Ladle wrote that blogs " provide a

communication platform of incredible power " and that they should be used to

engage the public, " even to the extent of including blogging as part of a

researcher's job specification. "

 

Blogging, they added, is an excellent way to communicate the excitement of

working and living in the field, potentially inspiring a new generation to serve

on the front line of wildlife conservation.

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061205-blogs-animals_2.html