The national park Odzala-Kokoua is one of the biggest in the Central Africa. It shelters huge biodiversity and it is almost entirely covered with a rainforest. Thousands of elephants still live there, however, the number is decreasing every year. Large populations of lowland gorillas and chimpanzees live there as well but they have suffered big losses ten years ago during the epidemic Ebola, which comes there from time to time. On the western side, the park adjoins Gabon and all the other borders are lined with towns and villages along the way on the Congolese territory. Many poachers enter the very heart of the park. Some of them look for smaller prey for food and meat; others commercially hunt the apes and mainly elephants. The huge expanse of protected territory has also its disadvantages, such as bad control and protection possibility. African Parks has managed the park several years already and it is trying to control the illegal hunting. Thank to the director of the park Leon Lamprecht, I was able to enter the darkness of the rainforest for three weeks with pedestrian guards and document for my film their effort and beautiful nature, which we went trough. We were five with everything, what we needed for 20 days, on our backs. There are no routes in the rainforests. Physically, it was one of the most demanding things I have ever experienced in my life. But it was worth it! New friendships and a lot of adventure. I am bringing a selection, at least, of some photographs. The most interesting things were videotaped and you will be able to see them in the film in the future. I thank to Marcus Strobel and Tango Film GmbH for cooperation in transacting the videotaping license. For the next report from Odzala-Kokoua I spared my unforgettable meeting with apes and other animals. Next time! English translation by Eliška Kosová
Pilot Zito drives our boat tens of kilometers into the heart of the park. Sixty guards who keep the national park are divided into watches of four and each begins its three-week long mission elsewhere. I joined the one whose job was to go through the furthermost area of the park at the northwest.
The river Mambili and its tributaries pass through the virgin rainforest and every few seconds the scenery changes. Once you sail through canopy of trees and then you have a view of banks covered with grass. The river often puts a fallen tree or lianas in a way. Sometimes it is possible to go around, sometimes the pilot risks and simply drives over the fallen tree with his 12 meter-long wooden canoe (pirogue). Other times a machete and a chainsaw are necessary. I stopped counting the crocodiles basking on the trees after several hours.
The river is important not only as needed transport for the park guards and scientists but it is mainly home of many kinds of animals. There were African fish eagles along the bank of Mambili every mile. Any electric catfish, goliath tigerfish or aquatic turtle is not safe under his control. There is also possible to glimpse wading elephants in the river. However, we were not that lucky this time.
On the second days of our voyage we smelled some putrefactive meat. We got out of the boat and went to look for the source. After a half an hour making our way through the jungle we found a dead body of an elephant. He lied there for several weeks. There were many footprints of spotted hyenas. We have not found any human footprints though. The young elephant probably died naturally because there were tusks present, which we took away. However, it is possible that the poachers shot the elephant and he died later without them finding him. We will never find out the truth. The photo shows 25 year old guard Platini Bolende.
And here the rest of our crew is posing. To my left the leader of the team, experienced Longo Germain, is standing. On the other side is standing the oldest, Ewora Roger and on the ground is the novice, Willi-Prince. Notice, how clean and tidy we are. This is the last photo you will see us like this… The following morning we left the pirogue and started our journey through the rainforest to the North on foot.
With the upcoming year on the 1st January we sank into the rainforest. Our pace was very slow due to the lianas and mainly the impermeable plants of the family Amaranthaceae. We often walked only 5 kilometers during the whole day. And we felt like we had walked 50. Our bags were very heavy due to the packed food for three weeks. We cannot talk about continuous walk. Most of the time two people at the front were cutting out a tunnel for the others. The rest was listening to the surrounding and moved slowly forwards.
We stopped just before the sunset. We are making fire. The fire is necessary even in the hot jungle. Look at T-shirt of standing Ewora (on the right). This is how it looks after two days of usage. Others clothes were the same. In the front you can see my daily income of cookies, brand Arthur.
From an elevated place (this time from liana of a huge tree) the scenery looks fantastic. We went through this thick layer of plants several days. More than 3 meters high and intertwined Amarathaceae do not allow a lot of movement and view. In the whole day you cannot see anything sometimes. You can only see brown, dry and dusty bottom layer of the plants, where are many ants and sometimes even wasp nest. Due to this, our pace was slowed down to few hundreds of meters per hour. The image of an angry elephant rushing towards you or any poacher shooting you is not very calming. We were not thinking about these things in the terrain, even though; the possible risk is still here…
…but few nice photos were possible to make. Platini let himself be captured on the photo for his young and very beautiful wife. We became the closest friends with this guard. We understood each other well due to our similar age and even character. Most importantly, thank to this man and his endurance, I learned the basics of language Lingala during the mission. The language is spoken by millions of people on both sides of the river Congo. However, his lessons were not for free. Every day he wanted me to teach him new Czech words and phrases. I must say that he was quite good. When he wanted to tell me something without others understanding, he tried to talk to me in Czech.
Jealousy is a bad characteristic. But I was so jealous of the birds, which can fly and do not have to cut through and crawl like us. Hornbills, Palm-nut Vultures and African Grey Parrots were always curiously watching us. Monkeys were very loud and sometimes they came closer and then immediately ran away. I realized that every animal is adapted to the environment much more than humans are. The smaller size is an advantage in the thick rainforest.
…or be very big! Signs of the presence of an elephant. It was scratching on the tree (the lower part of the photo) and in the upper part we can see some holes made by the tusks. The elephant male was just showing off his strength or was trying to get down some ripened fruits. For sure, he could not be far away, probably only a few minutes before us.
He was here! We followed his footprints and they lead us here. The holes in the muddy ground were just filling up with water. They were so deep that a human leg would sink into it. We were not waiting for anything and followed the steps.
Elephants can move very quickly. We reached this handsome male after some time. The landscape opened and we were standing on the edge of one of the one hundred salines in the national park. This one was called Maya South. The adult male was alone walking through shallow water, wherefrom he collected precious minerals using his trunk and eating grass.
When the direction of the wind changed, he found out about us and ran away. Our meeting lasted only few moments. His timorous reaction and quick escape showed us that even here, in the heart of rainforest, the elephants are not safe and they have negative experience with people, poachers.
Our assumption was immediately proven. The next morning we found few months old skeleton of shot elephant. Tusks were not there. On the surrounding trees there were signs of machete and one of the bones was broken into two pieces – the place, where the huge male got the deadly shot. Let him rest in peace.
At the first sight the rainforest salines look like a little paradise. They actually were until some time ago. In comparison to the woods, there is a lot of light and animals meet here in order to get natural salts from the ground. The high concentration of animals and a perfect view makes these places the most vulnerable places in the Central African wild. Therefore, there is nothing to stop the poachers from shooting everything that has some value. To protect these thousands of Central African salines there is not enough people, money… but I think that it lacks real interest and will.
On the other side there was a herd of buffalos grazing. They are not alone… who can find the African Fish Eagle in the branches?
Lie down in the grass, do not notice any mud and ants and sneak forward! That is the only way to approach the group of relaxing buffalos. In the background there is a herd of red river hogs, bushpigs. Oxpeckers took care of the annoying insect on the animal bodies.
Moderate wind with right direction, buffalos were calm and we could take photos and videos.
Back into the reality, continue through the rainforest. I was amazed by the size of some trees. This is the magnificent sappeli, one of the main hard wood used in the area. For its solidity, endurance, beauty and its 20-30 meters high pillar parts of the bole of sappeli, as other kinds of trees, is greatly extracted from the nature outside of the park. Cannot the mankind leave at least something…? Do we have to use everything to its fullest extent, what nature offered us? Question for every one of us. Each of us can decide, to what extent will our affluence, money, comfort and pleasure drive us… we are not talking only about tropical wood or ivory here. We face similar choices every day in Europe!
This tree has grown for hundreds years. Its massive roots were impressive, even though, they were in our way. This does not happen in European forests anymore, to go ten meters around one single tree.
Similar obstacles were tiring, as well as Tsetse flies, bees and lack of water. Yes, lack of water! Even in the tropical rainforest there is not always water. This part of Odzala is dry and there are very little streams. It happened that during the whole day we did not find any and the guards have experienced even three daylong water quest. Although, we were tired, there was always fantastic mood. Few minutes of break, men had a cigarette and I had milk in powder.
We usually finished an hour before the sunset. It took some time to find a proper place, then just take down heavy and wet shoes, put up the tent and boil water for fou fou. Fou fou – some matter from manioc flour. It was filling 80% of our stomach during the mission. Preparation is quick (flour is mixed with boiling water). It tastes quite good (for Congolese people and me) and stays in the stomach for a long time.
Lodging for the night from the view of a tree. I do not have any photos from mornings – we left the camp when it was still dark before there were bees. They were coming due to our sweat and smell. It was impossible and usually painful to pack the tents with their presence.
We enjoyed the warmth and dryness provided by the fire after the meal. We dried our shoes only to step into a deep puddle or mud the next morning.
Successful fisherman Willi-Prince is proud of his catch, which made us all very happy. Finally, we approached a bigger river and Willi was lucky. Electric catfish and lungfish. Both are delicious. After two weeks of vegetating with fou fou with salty dried fish it was delightful.
By the river we found something disturbing – fresh humans’ footprints. Humans = poachers. No one else has a reason to go tens of kilometers through uninhibited rainforest. We informed the lead of the national park with satellite telephone about the finding. We followed the steps with bigger prudence and spaces between us.
On muddy places we tried to find more footprints of the poachers. This time with no findings.
Finally, we found the poachers’ camp. There was still fire; they had to be there in the morning. They left there some clothes, dishes, bags with fou fou flour and dried meat. We found remains of dead animals around the camp – legs of water-chervotain, many antelopes, cats and even monkeys. Our action was quick. We threw all of their belongings into the fire. When they come back, they will find a clear message.
Ewora Roger with me and burning camp at the back. This camp was more than 30 km in the center of the park. On our way, along the poachers’ route with many traps, we found two more camps. They all ended up the same!
Unfortunately, all the camps were left only a while ago. Had they found out about us or was it only a coincidence? In one of the camps I found a little chameleon.
For three days we followed the route leading to the North. There were many traps for smaller animals. Each of them were destroyed and put into the bag. No less than 300 traps were found. It was quite heavy. How much did we help the local animals? Usually, antelopes, porcupines and even smaller predators or monkeys end up in these traps.
This male situtanga was lucky. He was only few hundreds of meters away from the route of traps. Certainly, many of them were not that lucky.
There even trotted a little female situanga and then disappeared in the forest.
Although, the saline lake Komo was the smallest, it was probably the most idyllic we have seen. Unfortunately, it was situated only about 15 km from the border of the park and a road, so it is a common target of the poachers. It is possible to find footprints of bigger animals, however, they come only during the safe nights. During the days it is mostly empty.
The river Komo was a great source of water at the end of our journey; therefore, we stayed for a little while. This time our fishing attempts were not successful, so even after the third week we were still vegetating with salty dried fish… and fou fou.
Civilization! After twenty days of isolation. We arrived at the camp of Pygmies of Baka ethnicity. It was only a short distance to the road and population of Bantu. About five kilometers before the end (still in the park) we met a group of three men with a rifle and cartouche for animal hunting. It was not a caliber to hunt down an elephant, however, they can make some serious damage to almost all others – buffalos, gorillas, chimpanzees, antelopes… They did not resist, they tried to throw the rifle into the forest and hide it before us. It did not help them. I do not have a good quality photo but you can look forward to a video recording of the entire situation in the upcoming film.
A little smuggler! At the control station by the road leading to the Cameroon we were waiting two more days until we travelled a long distance back to the center of the park. During these two days a little (or big?) surprise was waiting for us. This little girl was passing around the tollgate with conspicuous box packed in a scarf. Popular cartridges for rifles, so called “double zero” (00), are responsible almost for everything that dies in the rainforest. An industry situated in Pointe Noire in Congo produces millions a year and no one cares what happens with them afterwards. The girl with the contraband was sent to the neighbouring village by her uncle assuming that she will not be caught. He was wrong…The little girl got from us a bag of sweets in exchange of box with 25 projectiles.
China in Africa! The actual topic. Each person has a different opinion. Is it a fair deal for both parties? Some generous international Chinese help for African states? Modern economical colonialism or pure exploitation? Personally, I do not think anything good about Chinese projects in Africa. Chinese build roads, bridges and other infrastructure. Nice… Except this, in context with elephants, I am worried about that the majority of ivory goes to China, where the demand is still increasing. Chinese workers are almost everywhere in Africa and there were many cases, in which their activity in ivory business was proven. These maybe even millions of Chinese workers all around this continent, therefore, can hardly bring something good to elephants and the wildlife in general. It is a paradox that the building of the road along the Congolese border of the park, a place with the highest number of elephants in the whole country, was given into the hands of the Chinese company…