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Photograph by Brent Stirton, Reportage by Getty Images
A silverback mountain gorilla confronts life in a war zone in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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Tsongo, an adult male gorilla, watches a ranger in Virunga National Park.
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Photograph by Brent Stirton, Reportage by Getty Images
Shot to death last summer by unknown assailants, a female mountain gorilla receives tender care from a Virunga Park ranger, who covers her with leaves to keep flies away. Poachers were unlikely suspects: They remove body parts such as head and hands to sell as souvenirs.
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Photograph by Brent Stirton, Reportage by Getty Images
Photo seen around the world: Grieving villagers carried Senkwekwe, a 530-pound silverback, from Virunga Park on July 24, 2007. His murder, and that of half his family, ignited worldwide outrage.
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Signs mark the graves of Senkwekwe and other gorillas at the Rumangabo ranger station. Nearby, the graves of park rangers killed in the line of duty are memorialized by collections of three different plant species, all hardy, long-lasting perennials.
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Paulin Ngobobo cradles the skull of Macibiri, one of the seven gorillas he was falsely accused of killing. With support from international NGOs, Congo's park service is renewing its efforts to save Virunga's peerless ecosystem.
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Arrested in March for trafficking in charcoal, former chief park warden Honoré Mashagiro awaits his day in court. He was also charged with plotting the murder of gorillas to silence Paulin Ngobobo (previous image), who fought to stop charcoal poachers.
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Forced from their homes by a decade of war, hundreds of thousands of people find shelter in Goma, or in disease-prone camps like Kibumba.
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In camps outside Goma, the UN and NGOs struggle to provide food, water, and cooking fuel to Congolese families displaced by violence.
Despite the rich volcanic soil that nurtures beans and potatoes in fields pressing in on Virunga National Park, some people go hungry in densely populated North Kivu Province.
The search for fuelwood drives villagers into the park to cut trees illegally; rangers confiscate one woman's load.
Congolese Tutsi Laurent Nkunda, who prefers to be called the "Chairman," wages war against the Congolese army and Hutu militias from a farmhouse near Kirolirwe, just west of Virunga Park. Accused of using child soldiers and other war crimes, Nkunda claims he is protecting the Congolese Tutsi from genocide at the hands of the Hutu. He also claims he is a conservationist.
Troops loyal to rebel general Nkunda train in the park. They control the Mikeno sector, home to as many as 200 of the world's remaining 720 mountain gorillas. Nkunda's troops say they are under penalty of death if they molest the great apes, the engine of Virunga Park's once profitable tourism.
A close encounter with a gorilla from the Kabirizi family awes soldiers from Nkunda's forces. Unseen by outsiders for six months while fighting raged, this family seems unharmed. The gorillas are highly susceptible to flu and other human diseases, the reason the park service requires all visitors to keep at least 23 feet away. Nkunda has revived gorilla tourism without park service permission.
Undeterred by a warning cross where Hutu rebels recently attacked park rangers, UN forces advance up Nyiragongo volcano. The rebels cut trees and produce charcoal in the park, a lucrative trade that is destroying the forest. Their presence is also keeping out tourists. On this patrol, the blue-turbaned Sikh peacekeepers routed the rebels without firing a shot.
A Virunga Park ranger on a charcoal poaching patrol crosses a clear-cut swath of forest. Heavily armed Hutu militias cut hardwood trees and produce charcoal within park boundaries, often repelling rangers with gunfire.
Guarding a rare prize—a stack of trees once destined to become illegal charcoal—a Virunga Park ranger scans the forest for lingering Hutu rebels. This unfinished kiln would have been covered with mud and set ablaze, producing as many as a hundred sacks of long-burning charcoal, the kind favored in nearby Goma and across the border in Rwanda, where charcoal production has been banned. Confiscated wood and charcoal are distributed to displaced people in camps and to orphanages.
Where there's smoke in Virunga Park there's an illegal charcoal kiln, like one near Kibati being dismantled by rangers backed by UN troops.
Caravans of porters carry sacks of charcoal illegally produced in Virunga Park to waiting trucks. The trucks, escorted by corrupt Congolese soldiers, take the charcoal to markets in Goma.
A ranger detains a girl bearing a 150-pound sack of charcoal. Stopping "mule trains" and the $30-million-a-year trade they enable is a ranger's most dangerous mission.
Her sack of charcoal confiscated, a woman begs a park ranger for mercy. Most "mules" are women from the refugee camps or villages, hired for less than a dollar a day. This woman will likely get a warning and a lecture: It's hard to fine people who have nothing.
Rangers at the Kibati patrol post seize charcoal hidden under a load of vegetables and bamboo. Many of the trucks are escorted by armed soldiers prepared to shoot their way through checkpoints, but UN forces supported the rangers making this bust.
Caught taking charcoal from Virunga Park, the wife of a Congolese army soldier can only watch as rangers at the Kibati patrol post confiscate 150-pound bags of charcoal, including her four bags. Hidden beneath a load of vegetables and bamboo, the contraband would mean many days' wages for her family. The woman was shocked by the confiscation—the first enforcement action in months. She returned the following day with her husband, but to no avail. The rangers stuck to their guns.
A fellow park ranger mourns Kambale Kalibumba, the 36-year-old father of eight who was shot on February 27 while trying to apprehend a Congolese soldier. The soldier had allegedly murdered a doctor to steal his motorbike.
Fellow park rangers bury Kambale Kalibumba. In the past decade more than 110 Virunga Park rangers have been killed in the line of duty.
An orphaned gorilla curls up with a ranger who is her caregiver.
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