"♪ ♪" "JUSTIN HALL:" "We just arrived on the outskirts of the camp." "It's obviously a control point." "♪ ♪" "So, I find myself in North Kivu on the border of Virunga National Park in a Mai Mai village waiting for the commander of the forces here." "A couple of guys in the corner here, none of them have got to be older than 20 years old," "AKs by their side, having a drink." "It's probably the most surreal Friday night" "I've ever had in my life." "Virunga is one of the most famous parks on Earth, home to some of the world's most incredible creatures." "This really is the front line of conservation activity." "MAN:" "Mai Mai is a local armed group." "Whenever we meet with them, we have to exchange fire." "JUSTIN:" "But it's also a place of danger and death." "MAN:" "We found the bodies of four females at that point, one of which was pregnant." "MAN:" "Took the rifle and got out of the car, and it was at that point that I got hit in the chest." "JUSTIN:" "Where a clash between exploitation and conservation threaten to destroy people, animals and the land itself." "♪ ♪" "I'm in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country where decades of war and civil unrest, a barely functioning infrastructure and a culture of corruption have allowed black markets and armed groups to thrive." "I'm on my way to Virunga, Africa's oldest national park." "As an explorer I have spent years in some of the most remote and dangerous places on Earth." "It's always been my mission to seek out the environmental and humanitarian issues of our changing world." "I'm here now to meet with the people responsible for protecting the park, and those who are bent on exploiting it." "Good morning." "Innocent." "I'm Justin." "How are you, man?" "INNOCENT MBURANUMWE:" "I'm fine." "JUSTIN:" "I'm the guy that wrote to you about joining your patrol." "Is that okay with you?" "INNOCENT:" "Yes, it's okay." "We are ready for that." "We can go." "JUSTIN:" "Where do you want me?" "Where should I go?" "INNOCENT:" "You can just sit here." "JUSTIN:" "Yeah?" "JUSTIN:" "Bonjour." "MAN:" "Bonjour." "♪ ♪" "JUSTIN:" "Warden Innocent Mburanumwe has been a ranger for 17 years." "He's an authority on the endangered mountain gorillas and has command over the southern sector of the park, which includes the volcanoes and the critical Mikeno sector, home to the mountain gorillas, which was a war zone as recently as 2014." "♪ ♪" "If you work in conservation, you face dangers on a daily basis, but this really is the front line of conservation activities." "The rangers carry guns to protect themselves as well as the gorillas." "Severe poverty creates desperation." "Gorillas are still poached for meat and captured for sale to private collectors." "Armed groups involved in poaching and other crimes outnumber the rangers approximately 12 to 1." "There is a constant risk of ambush." "Virunga covers an area of 3,000 square miles." "It's a vast terrain which includes snowcapped mountains, volcanoes, savanna, wetlands, tropical forests, and the lion's share of great Lake Edward." "It's a treasure of biodiversity, a UNESCO World Heritage Site." "But the threats to wildlife are constant." "It's nearly six miles on a winding dirt road to Bukima, the ranger outpost of the gorilla sector." "We arrive at the forward operating base." "That was some pretty good driving." "[laughs]" "Gentlemen." "So what's the plan?" "INNOCENT:" "The plan is just to go and patrol in this area." "JUSTIN:" "So, tell me about some of the dangers that you guys face on a daily basis." "INNOCENT:" "In the daily patrols, here, it's the armed group, and the aggressive animals, like buffalo." "JUSTIN:" "And you face more danger from..." "INNOCENT:" "From armed groups." "JUSTIN:" "From armed groups than buffalo?" "INNOCENT: ...than buffalo." "JUSTIN:" "Innocent's work has earned him recognition as National Geographic Explorer of the Year." "♪ ♪" "It's the heart of the Congo." "There's an edible mist." "I can taste nature." "It's incredible." "I've got to temper my enthusiasm with the seriousness of what we're actually doing." "We keep stopping for the guys checking the way." "♪ ♪" "INNOCENT:" "Shh." "Shh." "That's a monkey." "♪ ♪" "Oh, wonderful." "Hey, we're going to have a chance to see some gorillas..." "JUSTIN:" "Is this gorilla?" "You're kidding." "INNOCENT:" "It's gorilla dung." "JUSTIN:" "Is it fresh?" "INNOCENT:" "It's from today." "JUSTIN:" "We're lucky, huh?" "INNOCENT:" "Yeah." "♪ ♪" "We are approaching the gorilla, so we have to wear our masks." "JUSTIN:" "Gorillas are very susceptible to human germs." "A simple cold could prove fatal." "[Innocent grunts]" "JUSTIN:" "Innocent vocalizes to reassure the gorillas he means no harm." "[grunts]" "INNOCENT:" "Stay there." "Just stay there, stay there." "[low grunt]" "♪ ♪" "JUSTIN:" "Ah, one coming down, huh?" "[grunting]" "♪ ♪ [grunting]" "There's roughly 900 mountain gorillas remaining on Earth, and close to half of them live here in Virunga and the adjacent national parks." "♪ ♪" "JUSTIN:" "A family of gorillas is typically led by a dominant older male, the silverback, who gains his silver tinge about 13 years old, when he becomes an adult." "They share 98% of our human DNA." "Incredible." "They're peaceful, gentle, and mainly vegetarian." "And clearly they spend most of their time feeding." "The male eats up to 60 pounds of vegetation a day." "To see these incredible creatures in the wild, what a humbling gift." "It hits me on a gut level, a sense of responsibility, and a clear need to protect them." "♪ ♪" "Thank you so much for allowing me to join you today." "It was an incredible encounter." "My chance to meet the gorillas." "INNOCENT:" "Yeah." "JUSTIN:" "I could see it was such a beautiful moment actually." "I looked at you and you were looking at the gorillas, and I could see in your eyes, you absolutely love them." "INNOCENT:" "They are like my friends." "I love them so much." "JUSTIN:" "You're policing the forest, but sometimes you're gonna come up against communities that just need firewood, just need a means to make money." "How do you balance that?" "INNOCENT:" "These local people, they didn't see," "I can say, the benefit from the national park." "But now, we tried to build some schools around the park just to show them the importance of the park." "When we are in the patrol, and we meet someone from the local village or a civilian doing some charcoal or hunting an animal, we try just to catch him." "Then we bring him to the headquarters, then we try to show him the importance of protecting the nature." "JUSTIN:" "I think about Innocent and his men." "They're the last line of defense in the battle to protect Virunga's resources from exploitation." "Nine years ago this battle seemed nearly lost when enemies of the park sent the rangers a message that shocked the world." "MAN:" "If you wanted to make a shocking statement about your derision for wildlife, this would be the kind of statement that you'd make." "JUSTIN:" "Virunga National Park was founded in 1925 by King Albert of Belgium for the express purpose of protecting the mountain gorillas." "Albert, a nephew of brutal King Leopold II, was an early conservationist, but he didn't care much for the local population." "When Virunga's borders were drawn, many were forced from their homes." "This royal decree created massive resentment." "Nine years ago, the conflict between the park's protectors and those bent on its exploitation exploded in a crime so horrific, that it commanded the world's attention." "The bodies of seven gorillas were found in the forest." "They'd been shot execution-style." "In Rumangabo, behind the old ranger station is a cemetery." "I've found the final resting place of the seven murdered gorillas." "♪ ♪" "Photographs of the their corpses sparked outrage worldwide." "♪ ♪" "The man who took those photos, Brent Stirton, still covers the park today." "♪ ♪" "Some of these gorillas are survivors of the massacre." "One is the orphan of the silverback Senkwekwe." "♪ ♪" "One of the most powerful images I think I've ever seen, certainly related to conservation and conflict, is the picture that you took of the giant silverback." "Could you sort of walk me through the events of that day in July of 2007?" "BRENT STIRTON:" "It was raining quite hard at the time, and there were number of groups in the area that we needed to be careful of, so it was tense." "We found the bodies of four females at that point, one of which was pregnant." "What was quite shocking to me was one of the females had been burned." "You know, if you wanted to make a shocking statement about your derision for wildlife, this would be the kind of statement that you'd make." "We marked where the females were, we knew that there was a possibility of others that had been killed." "So we came there very early the next morning and we found the silverback." "We knew that one of the babies was missing." "So, at that point, it was seven and the silverback." "The villagers came up, and these are villagers who live in the periphery of the park." "When they attached the gorillas to these makeshift stretchers, they plugged the bullet holes with flowers and leaves, and they plugged their mouths with flowers and leaves." "You know, it had a practical application, it was more that they were going to prevent fluids from leaking out on the porters, or just contain things, but it also was funeral-esque." "They evacuated these gorillas with sheer brute force." "They just lifted them up and put them on their shoulders and then walked them, really, miles." "It took them a good six, seven hours to do it." "♪ ♪" "They did most of it in silence." "And that's really unusual in Africa." "When we were carrying them out, it was very hard for me to get an angle that I felt summed up, you know, what I needed to say about what I was watching." "Because it was quite biblical really, you know?" "So I ran ahead of this group, and I built like a small pile of rocks, and I climbed on top of those rocks as they were coming past me so I could get some kind of overhead." "♪ ♪" "It's interesting as a journalist, because you get quite hardened dealing with human death, but it was my first experience of..." "It's ridiculous because I, I still..." "It's funny, because it's still one of those things that really moves me." "JUSTIN:" "These killings weren't the work of poachers." "So who would want to kill such extraordinary creatures?" "MAN:" "As I was approaching, one of them raised his rifle." "And so I realized something was about to happen." "I ducked." "[gunshots]" "The windscreen shattered, and you know, I knew I was getting shot at." "JUSTIN:" "I'm meeting with Brent Stirton, a photojournalist whose pictures of the dead gorillas in Virunga raised international outcry." "I was stunned to learn that the massacre was about a fight over the park's hardwood." "From what I understand the investigations into the reasons for the gorillas' murders was because of the charcoal industry." "BRENT:" "What we found in the course of this investigation into the killing of the gorillas was that there was a charcoal cabal." "And this charcoal cabal had threatened the rangers and said, 'We'll kill your gorillas if you don't stop interfering in our business.'" "Charcoal is important because it's the main source of heat and cooking in the region." "And the bottom line is that the source of hardwood is in the park." "To get the hardwood you must destroy habitats, to destroy habitats you affect the gorillas and every other animal in the region, and you also see expansion into the park." "JUSTIN:" "In North Kivu, only 7% of a population of millions have access to electricity." "So charcoal is the main source of heat and fire for cooking." "BRENT:" "The charcoal industry is worth about $40 million a year, which is a significant amount in this region, and that there were Tutsi businessmen, there were members of the Congolese army, involved in all of this." "But what was a surprise was that the person that was spearheading it from the park's perspective was a guy called Mashagiro." "Mashagiro was the warden in charge of the gorilla sector of the park at the time." "And then it emerged that a few rangers had actually been involved in the killing." "So, very difficult situation for the rangers investigating it to find that their boss was one of the guys responsible." "JUSTIN:" "Former Virunga chief warden Honore Mashagiro was charged but never convicted of the gorilla murders." "He was fired from his post." "Emmanuel de Merode, a descendant of Belgian aristocracy, became the new chief warden of Virunga." "De Merode had already been working in conservation for over a decade in the DRC." "And in appointing him, the nation's nature conservancy wanted an outsider who couldn't be bought." "It was a big risk hiring a white Belgian." "His country's colonial past, one of the most cruel and exploitative in history, meant that de Merode would have to prove himself at every turn." "Inheriting an agency in deep disarray, he walked into one of the biggest conservation challenges of our time." "He focused only on the task ahead, got to work and began rebuilding." "♪ ♪" "I'm heading to Rumangabo with Melanie Gouby, a French journalist." "She's helped me set up a meeting with de Merode." "Melanie's worked for years in North Kivu investigating armed groups and corruption." "I wanted to ask you about de Merode, because he's a princely character, right?" "He's a member of the Belgium aristocracy that could be accused of sort of starting much of the trauma here, what with Leopold II and his whole private Congo." "MELANIE GOUBY:" "He's Belgian, he's an aristocrat, sure." "But he grew up in Kenya, he's always lived in Africa." "He has a profound love of conservation." "Alright, this is Rumangabo." "JUSTIN:" "Yes!" "JUSTIN:" "Wow, this looks beautiful." "Wow, look at that!" "MELANIE:" "That's the, that's where Emmanuel's office is." "JUSTIN:" "The quintessential Congo command center, basically, isn't it?" "MELANIE:" "Yeah." "Alright, we're here." "JUSTIN:" "Ready?" "MELANIE:" "Yeah." "♪ ♪ [speaking French]" "MELANIE:" "Justin Hall." "JUSTIN:" "Hi, sir, Justin Hall, nice to meet you." "EMMANUEL DE MERODE:" "Hi, welcome." "JUSTIN:" "Conservation creates an idea to protect an area." "I mean, people around here are extremely poor." "There's got to be resentment." "Tell me about the challenges protecting the park limits." "EMMANUEL:" "The park, it's about two million acres of land." "Those two million acres have been set aside for conservation, which means that it's for the wildlife." "It's also for tourism, for people to come visit, but really it's for protecting the wildlife." "But it could have been used for agriculture." "So, because of that, the local populations are bearing a huge cost." "They can't exploit this land for agriculture." "They can't make money out of it." "And so we have to somehow generate value out of the park, we have to generate value for those populations living around it." "The other problem is that people have been lied to so many times here." "You know, they've been promised the Earth, and received nothing but suffering." "We're also up against armed militias who are intent on destroying the park for profit." "It's been extremely difficult, very challenging over the last few years." "JUSTIN:" "It's one of the things I wanted to ask you." "I was just with Innocent and the rangers, and I was deeply impressed." "These guys, they face bullets, but show up to patrol every day." "Incredible characters." "EMMANUEL:" "Well, that's the best part of the job is the people I work with." "You know, if I have difficult moments, they have even more difficult moments." "140 of them have been killed since I started working in conversation in Congo 20 years ago." "JUSTIN:" "But this threat isn't only against the rangers." "In April 2014, de Merode, who stands publicly in direct opposition to the profit-driven forces that seek to exploit the park, found himself in the crosshairs." "Recently, you were shot, yeah?" "EMMANUEL:" "Yeah, I was, my vehicle was attacked." "JUSTIN:" "What happened?" "EMMANUEL:" "I was driving back here, on the road you took today." "It seems there were some people waiting for me there." "And so as I was approaching, one of them raised his rifle." "And so I realized something was about to happen." "I ducked." "[gunshots]" "And then, you know, the windscreen shattered and, you know, I knew I was getting shot at." "So I tried to accelerate to get through, but then the engine cut." "And I had a rifle with me, so I took the rifle and got out of the car and tried to get into the forest." "And it was at that point that I got hit in the chest, and in the stomach." "And then when I was at a reasonable distance" "I fired some shots, to try and dissuade them from following me, and thankfully that worked." "I was quite lucky, you know, the bullets went through, straight through me." "If it had been a few centimeters to the right, then I would have been paralyzed." "A few more and I would have been killed." "JUSTIN:" "I mean, I've got to say..." "And you're back here?" "EMMANUEL:" "Yeah, yeah, yeah." "That's my job." "JUSTIN:" "He's been shot at, he's been nearly killed." "You know, it's a really direct question, but have you got any thoughts about who it might have been?" "MELANIE:" "You know, there's lots of people who might want him dead." "JUSTIN:" "I say goodbye to Virunga National Park where Emmanuel de Merode didn't care to speculate about who tried to kill him." "The case remains unsolved." "No one knows who did it." "But the warden has had his fair share of opposition." "The British energy giant, SOCO, was granted a concession, potentially worth billions, to explore for oil in the park." "De Merode rallied the international community and stood in their way." "Of course, the company denied any involvement." "Then there's the FDLR." "MELANIE:" "The armed group, FDLR, has been the main cause of rangers being killed in the past 20 years." "JUSTIN:" "The FDLR are the former perpetrators of the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda, who fled over the border into the Congo." "They've since taken up illegal residence in the park, building bases." "They thrive through criminal activities, including the manufacture of charcoal." "But there's another factor in the country's disarray." "REPORTER:" "These young Congolese have armed themselves with weapons abandoned on the roadside by pro-government forces." "They've joined the anti-rebel Mai Mai Militia and are preparing to fight." "JUSTIN:" "Armed vigilantes called the Mai Mai." "Living illegally inside the park, they claim to defend the poor and disenfranchised, the very people de Merode describes as being promised the world and having receiving nothing but suffering in return." "REPORTER:" "The commander says time is up." "He threatens to take our crew hostage, as he claims he did another foreign journalist two weeks ago." "JUSTIN:" "There's an illegal Mai Mai encampment inside the park borders." "Now these are completely marginalized people whose only voice, as I understand it, is the gun." "They believe the land should belong to its original inhabitants." "They stand in direct opposition to de Merode and the rangers' efforts to protect Virunga." "Can they be convinced to put down their weapons and leave the park?" "To find out, I need to meet them." "I drove into the night through some seriously dodgy checkpoints manned by drunken soldiers to Rutshuru Territory, situated halfway between Lakes Edward and Kivu." "♪ ♪" "CALEB KABANDA:" "D'accord." "JUSTIN:" "Hey, man." "What's the deal?" "CALEB:" "I'm just calling him before we go." "JUSTIN:" "What's the role of this guy?" "CALEB:" "He's the FARDC commander here." "JUSTIN:" "We need the blessing of the local commander." "It's like signing a contract that says if anything bad happens to me," "I went in knowing the risk." "Caleb is our new fixer for the next section of our journey." "We are aiming to meet with the Mai Mai groups tomorrow." "And one of the key things for me is to, you know, understand the role that these groups play within the forest, you know." "If I'm exploring a story about Virunga's park," "I really need to hear their voice." "What is the plan for tomorrow?" "Can you give me an idea of where we are?" "CALEB:" "They told me that a guy who is supposed to come to pick us in the morning and bring us into the bush, he hopes that he will be here tomorrow by 8:00." "JUSTIN:" "What advice would you give to me?" "Caleb warns me that the Mai Mai Charles, named after their leader, call themselves a militia, but have no real military discipline and are prone to paranoia." "CALEB:" "You have to be cautious and wise in the way that you are questioning them." "JUSTIN:" "Caleb also tells me that the group was formerly called" "Mai Mai Shetani-- Swahili for Satan." "Yeah, I realize the risks, but I think they're worth taking." "Look, I've got to get some sleep." "I'll see you tomorrow." "CALEB:" "So, thank you." "JUSTIN:" "Cheers, man." "CALEB:" "Yeah." "JUSTIN:" "I didn't sleep last night thinking about today." "Well, 8 o'clock rolled around and my escort didn't show." "It's now 11:00 and I'm still waiting." "So our contacts just arrived for our journey into, into the forest." "Are we good to go, man?" "We were supposed to leave early in the morning, and it's now quarter to 4:00, it gets dark around 6:00." "Here there's no electric fence or gate manned by armed rangers." "I'm going into the park by one of its many back doors." "Caleb was saying that all the people in the villages, surrounding villages, head out in the mornings to go to work their farms." "It couldn't be more obvious that people here are absolutely reliant on nature." "Reliant on lake fish and bush meat from the park and clearly on hardwood for fire." "I see very few trees here outside Virunga's borders." "Once upon a time, this would have been forest." "It's all been cleared away by a growing human population." "Jambo." "CALEB:" "Jambo." "JUSTIN:" "Hey, young man in the forest." "JUSTIN:" "Jambo." "JUSTIN:" "A young man with an AK-47 is one of my first Mai Mai." "He's going to the lead us to the checkpoint, which is going to be our next challenge." "I can't help noticing the urgency of these farmers as they race home." "They seem to be wondering what on Earth am I doing heading into the forest as it grows dark?" "What's that?" "Crazy man." "Yes, I know." "I am crazy." "I'm committed by now to spending the night with an armed militia, the sworn enemies of de Merode and the Virunga Park rangers." "So we're going to be arriving in the dark, huh?" "CALEB:" "Of course." "JUSTIN:" "Of course." "Is it safe to travel these routes at night?" "CALEB:" "So it's not totally safe, even if we are with them, you know, because, they are also crazy guys, you know." "You can see how he behaves, he's calling you that you are crazy." "JUSTIN:" "The term 'mai mai' refers to 'maji,' the Kiswahili word for 'water.'" "Many of the Mai Mai believe that dousing in magic water will protect them on the battlefield." "♪ ♪" "Caleb just mentioned that we just arrived at the edge of the park, actually." "And I can hear noises in the distance." "In fact, there's little huts here." "Seems like we are arriving at the camp." "Check, checkpoints." "CALEB:" "Here we are, we have arrived." "♪ ♪" "JUSTIN:" "Waiting for the commander." "Just in time." "It's just turned dark, which isn't exactly ideal." "♪ ♪" "The air is thick with ganja smoke." "I'm three hours' walk to the nearest town, and I'm completely at their mercy." "So, I find myself in North Kivu, on the border of Virunga National Park, in a Mai Mai village, waiting for the commander of the forces here." "A couple of guys in the corner here, none of them have got to be older than 20 years old." "AKs by their side, having a drink." "It's probably the most surreal Friday night" "I've ever had in my life." "Waragi, made of distilled banana leaves, was originally called war gin." "It's cheap, available, but sometimes fatal." "When homemade, the alcohol has been blamed for blindness and death." "So what's..." "CALEB:" "I have to give to you." "JUSTIN:" "You have to give it to me, uh?" "Nice." "How do I say thank you?" "CALEB:" "Asante." "JUSTIN:" "Asante, asante." "Boy." "It's good." "Oy." "[laughter]" "JUSTIN:" "It's been about two hours since I got here, and no one's really let on what's happening." "Far as I know, I'm still waiting for the commander." "Freakiest moment of my life." "[music playing on phone]" "Finally I'm ushered on to another hut, but still no commander." "[dog barking]" "The second in command, through stoned and glassy eyes, invites me to a meal of ugali, basically mashed cassava and lake fish." "CALEB:" "There's fish here!" "JUSTIN:" "Yeah, I tried that!" "JUSTIN:" "Because of the fish?" "JUSTIN:" "Whether it's God's to give or not, the government policy in Lake Edward, plagued by decades of overfishing, now dictates that people follow rules such as not fishing in the shallow waters where fish breed." "The Mai Mai clearly resent de Merode's oversight." "It's just gonna keep on coming." "Apetik." "Apetik!" "I'm pretty buzzed for sure on the waragi, but I don't think it's a good idea to sleep with 20 stoned adolescents with AK-47s roaming about." "Hopefully tomorrow I can get an interview with the commander and get out of Dodge." "[yelling]" "JUSTIN:" "Brekkie, let's get some brekkie." "Overnight at the Mai Mai camp I didn't catch any sleep." "By daylight this place is utterly transformed, somehow sadder." "Crashed-out boys with guns at rest and empty packets of bush gin littering the earth." "Apparently commander Charles returned late last night with a bad case of malaria and has taken to his bed." "He's asked me to interview his number two in command." "Apetik." "Commander." "Thank you for the hospitality." "It's a real privilege to be in the encampment, and thanks so much." "JUSTIN:" "What's your relationship with Virunga National Park?" "JUSTIN:" "Many of these boys are orphans of war." "They have been in the bush so long that they can't imagine a different life." "They see themselves as true patriots protecting sovereign lands from foreign invaders." "In some sense it's their justification for illegal residence." "It gives them a sense of purpose for the conscious minutes they have to get through without the aid of drugs and alcohol." "They are a manifestation of an illness that threatens Virunga." "An illness in need of a cure." "I begin my long hike and drive out of the park." "I hear from everyone that the remedy to all of DRC's problems is sustained peace after so many decades of war." "I get that armed militia are vestiges of war, but this is a time of relative peace." "So who are the Mai Mai protecting?" "Why don't they put down their guns?" "Is Apetik's rhetoric justification for continued exploitation of the park?" "I'm heading to the nearest village to speak with the people the Mai Mai claim to protect and get some answers." "JUSTIN:" "Back in Nyamilima, it's Sunday Mass." "I'm turned down by nearly everyone I try to speak to." "Is it fear of reprisal or that I'm a foreigner?" "Finally, I meet with Alphonse Byamunga, a local businessman who isn't afraid to speak to me." "He's an elected official and feels a deep sense of responsibility for the community he's lived in his whole life." "So the Mai Mai that I met said that they are from this community and that they defend this community." "Is that true?" "JUSTIN:" "Could you give me any specific examples of the Mai Mai's abuses?" "JUSTIN:" "I think about the people who can't use the parklands to survive, but have no other means." "I think about the armed groups in the park, themselves victims who create other victims in a cycle of exploitation and poverty." "It strikes me as one of the greatest challenges of conservation in the 21st century." "How do you protect Virunga and help the four million desperately poor people who live within a day's walk of the park's borders?" "The Democratic Republic of Congo is the second largest nation in Africa." "In terms of natural resources, it's one of the wealthiest nations in the world." "As much as 60% of the population live on less than a buck 25 a day." "And the area around Virunga is among the country's poorest." "When I spoke with de Merode, he described a project funded by local and international partners called the Virunga Alliance, designed to save the park and severely reduce the problem of poverty." "I head to Matebe where a hydroelectric project just outside the park's borders is under construction." "I'm going to meet with Safari Samuels." "He's the site's chief engineer." "Safari, thank you for agreeing to meet with me to tell me about the site here." "What's going on?" "I mean, it's a hive of activity." "How many men do you have working here?" "JUSTIN:" "So why do you think that this is important for this area?" "JUSTIN:" "In 2009, 47% of the country's exports went to China." "By reducing the manufacturing dependency on foreign nations, the Virunga Alliance hopes to generate industry and new jobs for the people here." "JUSTIN:" "Can I have a look on the bridge?" "Safari explains that this relatively small plant is a 13.8-megawatt facility that won't harm the environment." "No dams, no flooding." "The rivers here in the park contain huge amounts of energy." "I never thought that a hydroelectric plant could be so inspiring." "Electricity will drastically reduce the dependency on charcoal and could save what forest in and around Virunga is left." "De Merode wants to build six more hydroplants to serve four million people." "But how does this solve the threat of war and armed groups in the park?" "EMMANUEL:" "If we can create 100,000 to 120,000 jobs, if that massive employment can absorb many of those people who would otherwise take up arms, then it becomes a very powerful instrument for building peace in the region." "JUSTIN:" "There's a term now used by fisherman on Lake Edward to describe a bumper catch" "It's called 'pêche de Merode,' or de Merode's fish." "The stricter enforcement on fishing practices is paying off." "The fish population is steadily returning." "I would love to be here when the hydroplant goes on line and that tiny village just outside the Mai Mai camp turns a light on for the first time." "The country is extraordinary and blessed with some of nature's greatest treasures." "But it's a powder keg." "Day by day, the battle for Virunga is being fought by people like Emmanuel de Merode and the Virunga Alliance," "Innocent Mburanumwe and the park rangers, fighting to protect the mountain gorillas and their habitat to create jobs, re-educate poachers, alleviate poverty... to help build a place where wildlife and human life are not mutually exclusive but mutually beneficial."