DRC: decree authorizes the slaughter of protected species, ICCN was not aware
Young bonobo monkeys, near Kinshasa.
AFP / File
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In the DRC, the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICCN) is campaigning for the interministerial decree authorizing in particular the capture and killing of certain protected species to be canceled.
Correspondence was sent to various authorities including the Deputy Prime Minister and Congolese Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development.
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With our correspondent in Kinshasa,
Patient Ligodi
This decree was signed a year ago but ICCN only learned of it last month.
According to the Minister of the Environment at the time, the measure was taken in order to bail out the state coffers.
What shocks the defenders of nature.
For 40 years, Congolese law has prohibited the hunting of protected species such as mountain gorillas, bonobos, savannah elephants, okapis or black rhinos.
According to ICCN, the ministerial judgment undermines the efforts of the government, which is fighting to comply with the requirements of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
Promote tourism to generate the desired income
Jean Joseph Mapilanga Wa Tsaramu, director of the technical and scientific department of ICCN, fights against the hunting of protected animals and advocates eco-tourism.
“
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 income without cutting off the head of the specimen and finding these pieces in a pot.
"
ICCN is trying to use all its weight to have the ministerial decree annulled.
“
It is the ideal, the wish, the request
: to succeed in canceling this decree and to find other ways.
"
The teams at the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development having changed in April, the defenders of protected animals hope the cancellation and be heard by the new team.
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