GreenWatch

By B. McPherson Is that blood on your ear? Is blood oozing from the coltan that helps power your phone, your computer and a myriad of other electronic goods that make life in N. America so enjoyable? Coltan is the commercial name for the ores columbite and tantalite which, when refined, is used in electronic capacitors. Australia, Brazil and Canada are some of the leading producers of this new “gold”, but 80% of the world’s supply comes from sub-Saharan Africa. At one point this most useful substance was fetching $1000 per kilo. It has fueled a mineral rush in the eastern Congo (DRC). There were far reaching effects of the discovery of this mineral. Firstly, the miners rushed to exploit possible deposits, with no regard to the environmental consequences. Virunga Park has fallen victim to the freelance digging. Accompanying the ruin by mining is the poaching of large mammals for bush meat, including the critically endangered mountain gorilla. The DRC has the second large...

By B. McPherson This wildlife refuge in the Albertine Rift area of Africa was designated a World Heritage Site in 1979. The 790 000 ha site was dedicated as a park in 1925. Since then it has been subjected to increasing pressure from the swelling populations in that area. Villagers crowd the park boundaries and infiltrate it, seeking to increase their plantings and find forage for their cattle. Charcoal merchants turn park trees into fuel for city dwellers in Goma who lack other means to cook their food. Tomorrow the Democratic Republic of the Congo(DRC) will hold elections. Perhaps the warfare that has raged in this area will cool, perhaps not. Virunga Park also  borders the countries of Rwanda and Uganda, countries that have had their share of civil unrest, resulting in massacres and millions of displaced people. Enterprising poachers have slaughtered many of the large mammals in the park and sold the meat to soldiers, and irregular militia as well as to the refugees. As w...