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- [00:00]
Zach Goldbaum
Wondry subscribers can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad free right now. Join Wondry in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Early in the morning of July 23, 2007, a group of park rangers are hiking through the jungle of Virunga national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They're wearing green fatigues with matching berets and Kalashnikov rifles slung over their shoulders. Last night, the rangers heard gunshots from deep inside the park, so they're heading out on foot patrol to investigate. The sound of gunfire isn't unusual in Virunga, which spans nearly 2 million acres, about the size of Yellowstone National Park. It's far too sprawling for rangers to keep an eye on all of it, so there's a lot of trespassing, poaching and illegal logging by various groups, most of them heavily armed. But last night's shots were different. They came from a sensitive area of the park, high on the forest covered slopes of one of Virunga's seven volcanoes. The park's most famous inhabitants live there. A 12 member family of endangered mountain gorillas. When the rangers finish wading through the underbrush, they approach the gorilla habitat cautiously. The animals are used to humans, but the rangers better than to surprise them. Especially the patriarch, a 500 pound silverback named Senque. But the habitat is silent. Something awful has happened. Three female gorillas lie crumpled on the ground. They have been shot to death. The rangers fan out to search the area and eventually find Cinque, who has also been killed. Miraculously, the rangers do find two survivors. An infant gorilla named Akase and her sister Daisy. The rangers are horrified, but this isn't the first time they've seen carnage like this. A month earlier, the bodies of two females and an infant from a different gorilla family had been found, killed in similar circumstances. One had been shot in the back of the head. Like a mob execution, the rangers use makeshift wooden stretchers to carry the gorillas back to headquarters. Senkwekwe's body is so heavy, it takes more than a dozen men to lift him. When word gets out, journalists and photographers descend on the park. And an image of Senkwekwe's body being carried out of the jungle goes viral. The murders become global news. Virunga is besieged with inquiries from international media, animal rights groups and the Congolese government. They all want to know the same thing. Who would slaughter these beautiful endangered animals and why? From Wondry, I'm Zach Goldbaum and this is Lawless Planet. Each week we tell a new story about the true crimes fueling the climate crisis and the people fighting to save the planet or destroy it.
- [03:33]
Emmanuel Demirod
As I got closer, he raised his rifle and he opened fire on the vehicle.
- [03:47]
Tommy Alters
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- [05:24]
Zach Goldbaum
This April, Virunga National park celebrated its 100th birthday. It's Africa's oldest park, and many consider it the greatest national park on earth. Virunga is part of the Congo Basin, which contains the second largest rainforest in the world after the Amazon. It actually now absorbs more carbon than the Amazon, due in part to extensive deforestation in South America. But the rainforest isn't Virunga's only treasure. It also contains volcanoes, savannas, alpine forests and peatlands, and it's home to more species of mammals, birds and reptiles than any other park in Africa. It has all the hits elephants, hippos, lions, but it also has deep cuts like okapis and my personal favorite, pangolins. But Virunga's most famous inhabitants are its mountain gorillas, which are endangered. There are about a thousand left on the planet, of which Roughly a third live in the park. In 1979, Virunga was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In theory, that gives it protected status, but in reality, Virunga is anything but protected. It lies in the most violent region in one of the poorest and most unstable countries in all of Africa. And all that stands in the way of militias, police, poachers and gangsters is a small army of rangers, hundreds of whom have been killed while on duty in the past 30 years. And soon the rangers would find themselves facing a new adversary, one that threatened to destroy not just the mountain gorillas, but everything they had fought and died for. Most visitors never forget their first impression of Virunga. French journalist Melanie Gubbi came to the park in 2011 and was blown away.
- [07:22]
Melanie Gubbi
We went to hike up the volcano and then hike through the forest to see the gorillas. That was one of the most incredible experience of my life.
- [07:33]
Zach Goldbaum
Melanie had been hired to set up a newsroom for Congolese women working as journalists in Goma, which is the closest big city to Virunga. She's also a freelance reporter for the Associated Press. And when she first visited the park, she fell totally in love.
- [07:50]
Melanie Gubbi
It was almost spiritual. When you're looking at the volcano, you're looking down at the stuff that the universe is made of. It's eternal. It's always going to be there. So it's kind of like looking at the stars, but looking down inside our planet, and it makes you feel very small. And then you go and see the gorillas and you kind of have the reverse experience where this creature are so massive and so powerful, but they are also completely at your mercy.
- [08:29]
Zach Goldbaum
Melanie felt this connection in a powerful way when she first visited a new addition to the park, a sanctuary for orphaned gorillas run by a ranger named Andre Balma.
- [08:39]
Melanie Gubbi
He invented the role of mountain gorilla caretaker, because that doesn't exist. There's never been a mountain gorilla in captivity before. He had to figure it all out, how to raise them, how to feed them, how to take care of them.
- [08:58]
Zach Goldbaum
Andre had developed an especially close Bond with the two survivors of the 2007 guerrilla massacre, Dekasi and her sister Daisy. He often joked to the other rangers that the gorillas had become like his children. I'm like their mother, all of them. They like to jump on my back.
- [09:19]
Melanie Gubbi
To play with me.
- [09:21]
Zach Goldbaum
Andre had no prior experience working with animals, but he threw himself into the role. He cared for them day and night, literally. He even slept alongside them in their enclosure. Visitors like Melanie weren't allowed to touch the gorillas, both for her safety and theirs. But one afternoon, Dekazi broke this rule.
- [09:42]
Melanie Gubbi
We were a little bit too close to the cage, and at some point, Takazi reached out from inside the cage and just, like, grabbed my hand really tightly. And there was this incredible feeling of, like, not a human hand, but not also really like an animal. It was very leathery and, you know, very warm. And then Andre started shooing her away. And so she let go of my hands, but essentially she had given me her poo, and so she let go of my hand, and I had this massive poo in my hand. And then she wiped her palm clean on my knee. So, yeah, I felt very, very special that day.
- [10:32]
Zach Goldbaum
But hanging over moments like these was the tragedy that birth the guerrilla sanctuary. The massacre had still not been solved despite the rangers investigating every possible lead. It could have been poachers, but that was quickly dismissed since they'd left the corpses of the slain guerrillas. Whoever did this wasn't hunting for meat or skins or a trophy. They were sending a message. And poachers aside, there was no shortage of other suspects. The DRC has endured decades of conflict and chaos, beginning with the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda. More than a million Rwandan refugees fled over the border into eastern Congo, both victims of the genocide and its perpetrators. Two bloody civil wars followed, further destabilizing the drc. And since then, eastern Congo has been home to several heavily armed militia groups who used the park as a hideout and as a transit route for funneling weapons and supplies across the border with Rwanda. There are so many of them that even locals struggle to keep them straight. But one crew loomed larger than the rest as a possible culprit in the guerrilla massacre. An exiled Rwandan militia turned organized crime group known as the Charcoal Mafia. Now, you're probably wondering, why does the Congo have a crime syndicate controlling the stuff I use to heat my grill? Well, in certain parts of Africa, charcoal is big business. Here's Melanie again.
- [12:08]
Melanie Gubbi
People's life, eastern Congo, they don't have access to other source of energy, and they use charcoal to essentially to be able to cook and also to heat their home because it can get quite cold. It's quite high in altitude, actually. And so people really rely on charcoal for a lot of things in their life.
- [12:27]
Zach Goldbaum
To make charcoal, you have to cut down trees and burn them in large dirt kilns. The older and denser the wood, the better the charcoal. And Virunga has some of the oldest trees in the country.
- [12:40]
Melanie Gubbi
And the park is there, and it's forested. And so it is, unfortunately, an important source of charcoal for people around the park. And because it's illegal, because it's a national park, then it's run by gangs, by, you know, mafia network.
- [13:01]
Zach Goldbaum
Some officials have estimated the Virunga charcoal trade is worth upwards of $30 million a year. For comparison, guerilla tourism during the same period averaged less than $300,000. So the prevailing theory was that the charcoal mafia must have murdered the mountain gorillas to tighten their grip on the forest where they lived. No more guerrillas to protect, no more ranger patrols and easier access to those old growth trees. And when authorities finally arrest someone in connection with the massacre, it does seem to be related to the charcoal trade. But it's not a member of the charcoal mafia. It's a Virunga park ranger. And not just any ranger. It's a man named Honore Mashegiro, the chief warden of the park. According to a criminal complaint, Mashigiro had been running his own illegal charcoal network, using the park as a personal vault of raw materials. The complaint alleges that Mashegiro ordered the guerrilla massacre to discredit the ranger in charge of protecting them. After that ranger began to suspect what the chief warden was up to, Mashigiro maintained his innocence. And while he was eventually forced to resign, he was never convicted. Still, Melanie says it was an open secret that many rangers were active participants in illegal activities inside the park.
- [14:28]
Melanie Gubbi
Because of the war and because of the lack of investment in conservation in Congo, and in eastern Congo in particular, rangers were really badly paid. And so when you have people who are not well paid in a conflict zone with opportunities to traffic some kind of resources, then, you know, it's really hard for people not to fall into that trap. And so there were rangers who were part of poaching rings or, you know, just poached to survive. And then in the years after, a lot of them remained into these trafficking networks and were involved in charcoal trafficking.
- [15:16]
Zach Goldbaum
So when the Congolese conservation agency that runs Virunga went looking for a new chief warden, they knew they would need someone who could come in and clean house. But in a region so impoverished, unstable and war torn, where there was more money to be made from looting the park than protecting it, who could they trust to do the job? In the end, they turned to an unlikely candidate. An outsider. And not just any outsider. A Belgian prince Emmanuel Demirod. Royalty aside, Demirode is an impressive guy. He's smart, serious, with a classy, swashbuckling vibe. He's a passionate, lifelong conservationist who grew up in Kenya and has dedicated his career to studying and protecting African wildlife. And by 2008, had been living in the DRC for 15 years. Here he is in an interview with National Geographic.
- [16:14]
Emmanuel Demirod
When I had finished my studies, I bought a motorbike in Uganda and just rode across Uganda into Congo and just came across this incredibly magical, spectacular place, you know, with its 17,000 foot mountains and its incredible savannas and tropical rainforest.
- [16:34]
Zach Goldbaum
But his appointment is also potentially controversial. That's because for nearly a century, what's now the Democratic Republic of the Congo was a Belgian colony. And even by the brutal standards of European colonialism, Congo was a nightmare. Belgium's king at the time was Leopold ii. And he didn't just colonize the Congo, he took it as a personal possession, looting its resources and using violence, starvation and torture to kill at least 10 million people. To this day, Belgium has a royal museum filled with artifacts Leopold stole. So hiring a literal Belgian prince to run the Congo's most famous national park, it was definitely a choice. But soon after he arrived, it turned out to be the right one. Melanie Gubbi interviewed Demirode and came away impressed.
- [17:29]
Melanie Gubbi
Emmanuel is very soft spoken. He's very polite, very well mannered. But you can also tell that behind this there is a determination that's steely. It's the iron fist in the velvet glove, as we say. He's someone who is just so focused and so determined to protect the park.
- [17:54]
Zach Goldbaum
In order to do this, Demirod needed to root out any rangers who were there for the wrong reason.
- [18:00]
Melanie Gubbi
His first task, sadly, was to figure out who he could trust and who needed to go. There was a number of rangers who were not in that job because they were for conservation. They were there because that gave them direct access to the resources and to be able to traffic them and be in a position of power, you know, you're an armed person. And so a lot of people were fired, were let go. And he tried to retain people that he felt were good people who were really there for the right reason and people that he thought were redeemable.
- [18:40]
Zach Goldbaum
After cleaning house, Demiraux needed to figure out how to deter the poachers, loggers, and militia groups raiding Virunga for personal gain. And he knew that a few hundred armed rangers alone weren't enough to do the job. Demeroad also understood what drove the exploitation of the park. Most Congolese living around Virunga are extremely poor. For them, the park offers a way to scrape out a living. So Demmerode began working to set up infrastructure to create jobs and boost the local economy, not just through tourism, but also through projects like small hydroelectric power plants. This had the double benefit of giving locals electricity to run small businesses and heat their homes, decreasing their dependence on charcoal. Virunga's staff are energized by Demirode's ambition. The park's future feels hopeful for the first time in years. But just as Demirode's plans begin to pick up steam, a new threat arrives. And this time it's not a militia or a mafia. It's a multinational corporation. Just south of Warunga national park lies Goma, the closest major city. When Melanie Gubbi arrived there in 2011, the city was still reeling from two decades of rapid change and growth.
- [20:12]
Melanie Gubbi
In the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, you had a million who fled into Congo and set up in camps around Goma. So Goma went from being a small, sleepy town on the lake to being this massive, nearly 2 million inhabitant city. Goma. When I first got there, it was this sort of shambolic place. There was a volcanic eruption in the early 2000s that destroyed a huge part of the city. So the city was this sort of mix of black lava strip and burst of pink flowers and people wearing this beautiful, colorful African fabric clothes, but everything sort of a little bit disjointed.
- [21:08]
Zach Goldbaum
For an outsider, Goma can be a hectic, disorienting place. But Melanie finds an oasis of community and camaraderie where many journalists have before. The neighborhood bar.
- [21:22]
Melanie Gubbi
The bar where everyone would meet. You would have like this sort of crazy mix of journalist, UN worker, humanitarian aid workers, mercenaries, Congolese army, and just regular Congolese businessmen all hanging out and partying together.
- [21:45]
Zach Goldbaum
So basically the Star wars cantina. One night at the bar, a friend.
- [21:51]
Melanie Gubbi
Approaches her table and tells me, melany, I think you should meet this young man. He's French like you. He works for SOCO International.
- [22:05]
Zach Goldbaum
Melanie had heard of soco. They're a UK based energy company and they'd recently been given a grant by the Congolese government to look for oil in a block of land that includes parts of Virunga.
- [22:18]
Melanie Gubbi
And we had a drink together. And I can't say that it went really well because I wasn't thinking, I'm going to investigate. I wasn't thinking like, okay, this is my story. I was just thinking, who is this guy? And like, he's doing something completely illegal, frankly, because the Virunga national park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and so it's legally not allowed to do commercial exploration work in the Virunga National Park. And so our first discussion was very confrontational. And then in the car, going back home, my friend told me, like, Melanie, what are you doing? You should be investigating this. This is so fascinating.
- [23:02]
Zach Goldbaum
As oil companies go, SOCO was kind of fascinating. They were based in England, but founded and run by a man from Texas named Ed Storey. He had a reputation for being affable but competitive and willing to go where other oil companies wouldn't. Story would make a deal with anyone. North Korea, Iraq, Yemen, Libya. In one interview, he joked that his client base was the Axis of Evil. And Story made a good living working with that axis. He owned half a dozen properties around the world and spent his leisure time playing elephant polo, which is a quirky hobby he picked up while drilling in Thailand. Storey probably thought that adding the Congo to his company's list of partner countries would be no big challenge. But then again, he had never met an adversary quite like Emmanuel Demirode. Demirode's first move is simple. He serves Soko a notice saying that Virunga is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and thus off limits for energy speculation.
- [24:03]
Emmanuel Demirod
And under both Congolese and international law, any oil related activities are illegal. When they announced their intentions to expand explore for oil on Lake Edward, we informed them that it was not legal. A convoy of vehicles arrived and forced their way into the park.
- [24:25]
Zach Goldbaum
All of Virunga is precious, but Lake Edward is especially vital because more than 30,000 residents depend on it for subsistence fishing. An oil spill on the lake would be devastating, but Demerod's protests fall on deaf ears. Not only does Soho continue to operate within the park, they do so with the full support of the Congolese military, who act as the oil company's private security force. If Demirod and his rangers are going to repel this latest threat, they are going to have to get creative. Demirod is convinced that even if Soko has the backing of the Congolese government, they must be breaking numerous laws in order to operate inside the park. There's no way that Soko's engineers could be getting around safely without bribing local officials and park rangers, militia leaders, or some combination of all three. But he can't fight them on a hunch. He needs evidence. And that's when he gets a lucky break. Through Melanie Gubbi, he meets a British filmmaker named Orlando von Einsiedel. Orlando originally came to Virunga to film a nature documentary. But when Melanie Gubbi told him about the situation with Soko, he agreed to help. Orlando offers to equip some of Demerode's rangers with buttonhole cameras so they can begin gathering evidence of potential SOCO wrongdoing. And one of the first to sign up is the warden of Virunga's central sector, a man named Rodrigue Katembo. Katembo's turf includes Lake Edward, so for him, Soko's mission feels like a direct attack. Attack. It's not. Kembo's first time facing down a hostile force. At 14, he was forcibly recruited into an armed militia, one of thousands of child soldiers drafted into various conflicts in the drc. For two years, he watched countless young people die for a cause they didn't even understand or believe in. Among them was his youngest brother. Eventually, Katembo escaped, escaped the army and fled to the other side of the country. He managed to enroll in university and land a job as a park ranger in 2003. Given all that Catambo has been through, backing down really isn't his style, an attitude he makes clear in Orlando's documentary called simply Baronga Acceptance. Except the proteges rangers commit to protecting the park to their last breath. He says, I may die. I just don't know when. In May 2013, Katembo gets a chance to put his hidden camera to the test. He's invited to a meeting with a Congolese intelligence officer who's serving as Soko's military liaison. In the middle of their conversation, the officer wonders if Katembo might be interested in some side work. Katembo asks what he has in mind. The officer makes him an offer. $3,000 to spy on Demirode. This means we are buying you, says the officer. Later, in a second meeting, the Congolese officer introduces Catembo to a private security contractor working for soco. Calling the contractor his boss, they ask Katembo to recommend other park rangers who might be willing to collaborate with soco, then offer him another bribe. All the while, Katembo's hidden camera records everything. Katembo isn't the only one using spy tactics against soco. Melanie Gubbi also suits up with a hidden camera to her next meeting with the French SOCO supervisor she met at the bar in Goma.
- [28:20]
Melanie Gubbi
So the first time you put on a hidden camera, it's very strange because you can feel it very much because it's very hot, so you're constantly aware that you're wearing it because it's right on your skin, so it's really uncomfortable, actually. And because you're constantly aware of it, all you can think is that everyone else must Be aware of it, too.
- [28:43]
Zach Goldbaum
But they aren't. The SOCO supervisor has other things that on his mind. Logistics, money, cocktails. Everything is flowing for Soko. The supervisor is in a great mood and Melanie is good company. They meet up a few times for dinner or drinks, and gradually he opens up more and more. At one dinner in particular, the executive is feeling loose. He's invited a security contractor working for Silco to join him. And Melanie. She smiles, nods and listens while the tape captures it all.
- [29:18]
Melanie Gubbi
The security contractor just ran his mouth and said pretty shocking things about Congolese and about the park and about what they were doing.
- [29:28]
Zach Goldbaum
The young Soko supervisor runs his mouth, too. He admits that his company gave cash to a Congolese member of Parliament to stage a pro oil demonstration. He even suggests that they pay off militia groups for safe passage through the park, though he quickly adds, we subcontract that shit. Then he really says the quiet part out loud. It's just a fucking mine, this park, he tells Melanie. It's crazy, the money you could pull out. And the best solution, effective for everyone, is to recolonize these countries. Melanie hides her reaction as best she can. She keeps digging into the story. Demurode and his rangers do the same. They all know they have to tread lightly. If the Congolese officials backing Soko find out what they're up to, things could turn ugly fast. In September 2013, Katembo was doing a routine patrol through the park when he comes upon a construction site hidden in the jungle. He asks the workers who hired them. They tell him they're building a communications antenna for SOCO International. Katembo asks to see their permit, but they don't have one. He tells the workers to shut down the site. But then a group of Congolese soldiers appear, led by a local tribal chief. They swarm Katembo, strip his gun and other possessions, and order him to leave. The chief warns Katembo that if he messes with Silco again, he could find himself being set on fire. And the intimidation tactics don't stop there. Two days later, Katembo is arrested by Congolese soldiers. He is beaten and mockingly paraded in front of other park rangers. Then he's hauled off to a detention center in Goma. Along the way, one of the soldiers hands Katembo a cell phone. He recognizes the voice as the intelligence officer who tried to bribe him into spying on Devereaude. He tells Katembo that he's being arrested for interfering with sanctioned SOCO business. Katembo is imprisoned for 17 days. Once in a while, soldiers pull him out for beatings or to subject him to mock executions. As soon as Demurode finds out what's happened, he notifies his media contacts around the world. Journalists and UN peacekeepers hound the DRC for updates about Katembo's abduction. The pressure works. The government relents and releases Katembo, and he's never charged with a crime. Soko denies any involvement and continues with their plans to close off portions of Lake Edward for seismic testing. And Congolese officials continue to aggressively silence any opposition. One fisherman, after speaking out at a public meeting, is warned that if he keeps behaving badly, he risks having his head cut off. Demirode and his rangers document everything, and their pile of evidence against SOCO grows. Demirode feels confident that soon he'll have enough to take a stand in court. And when he does, he plans to win. On April 15, 2014, demerod is driving back through Virunga after a trip to Goma, at the southern end of the park. He had gone there to deliver his report on SOCO International's activities in Virunga over the past three years to a public prosecutor who has agreed to open an investigation into the oil company. This, he hopes, is the moment when the efforts of journalist Melanie Gubbi, filmmaker Orlando Von On Einsiedel, and fearless rangers like Rodri Katembo finally pay off. At a bend in the dirt road, some men in army fatigues step out of the jungle. Each of them holds a rifle. They raise them and take aim. Demereaux ducks beneath the windshield just as the air explodes with gunfire. Bullets shatter windows and thud into doors as the jeep slows to a crawl. The engine has been hit. Demirod grabs his rifle and sprints toward the jungle. Halfway across the road, Demirode suddenly feels the wind has been knocked out of him. It takes a second to realize he's been shot. Somehow, he manages to scramble into the underbrush and blast some rounds of defensive fire. His attackers scatter. Demurode knows his wounds are too serious to wait for help. He limps along the road until a passing motorcyclist agrees to give him a ride to an army checkpoint. The soldiers then take him to the closest hospital. But Emmanuel Demurode is losing blood fast. Emmanuel Derod miraculously survives his assassination attempt, but he's never able to prove who shot him. Like with the guerrilla killings, there are too many suspects around Virunga to know for sure. But the timing is suspicious. Demirode had just delivered evidence against Silco. To a prosecutor, it looks like payback, or an attempt to Shut him up. Demurode's shooting sparks a firestorm of criticism and media attention. It's enough to tip the scales. Two months later, in June of 2014, SoCo announces it's pulling out of Virunga without a drop of oil. Their departure was a massive victory for Demurode and Virunga's rangers. And they've had other unlikely successes, too. Despite ongoing violence from militia groups, Virunga's mountain gorilla population recovered and continues to grow. There are now over 1,000 in the park, compared to only 700 a decade ago. But on September 26 of 2021, Virunga lost its most famous gorilla since being orphaned by the guerrilla massacre. Dekazi had become a social media star. She passed away in the arms of her best friend, Andre Balma, who founded Virunga's guerrilla orphanage. The rangers themselves are still risking their lives every day. The year before, in 2020, 17 people were killed in an ambush in the park. Twelve of them were rangers. The gunmen were believed to be connected to the charcoal ma. In 2022, the DRC announced they were going to hold an auction. The buyer wouldn't be Soko this time, but the prize was the same exclusive oil drilling rights to Virunga National Park. Melanie Gooby was flying back from an assignment in Kazakhstan when she heard the news.
- [36:29]
Melanie Gubbi
That was a very low point when I heard that they were putting Block five, the block that overlaps Virunga, again up for auction.
- [36:39]
Zach Goldbaum
And this time, the story was about protecting more than just a national park. The DRC wanted to auction off drilling rights to large swaths of the whole Congo Basin, which plays a critically important role in the climate of the entire planet.
- [36:55]
Melanie Gubbi
The Congo Basin, it is second in size to the Amazon, but today it's actually absorbing more carbon than the Amazon, sadly because the Amazon has been so destroyed, but also because it's one of the most understudied part of the planet. We know so little about the Congo Basin, and in the past decade, scientists have finally started looking at it seriously and are finding incredible things about this part of the continent.
- [37:25]
Zach Goldbaum
Among the things they've discovered is that the Congo Basin is home to the world's largest tropical peatlands.
- [37:32]
Melanie Gubbi
So peatlands, they're areas that are permanently waterlogged. And so when organic matter like tree leaf or trees or animals, when they die and they fall in the water, they don't fully decompose, and so they don't release their carbon into the atmosphere. Instead, they sink to the bottom, and in time, they become this lake beautiful black mush. That's pure carbon, essentially. So it's an ecosystem that's extremely important for the ecological balance of our planet.
- [38:09]
Zach Goldbaum
Currently, there are 52 oil blocks up for sale in the peatlands, plus another three already assigned to a state oil company. Critics say that if these blocks are developed, they could turn the planet's greatest carbon sink into into a carbon bomb. There are also plans to revitalize an agreement with Uganda to explore cross border oil deposits in an area that includes Barunga. So while Soko may be gone, the park remains under threat. And look, it is easy for us to condemn the Congolese government for auctioning off its pristine wilderness to the highest bidder. But remember, this is a country whose natural resources and people were brutally exploited by the west for more than a century plus. It's not like wealthier nations, including us, aren't exploiting our own energy resources. So if we're going to ask the Congolese to protect the planet by keeping their oil in the ground, what do we owe them in return? Whatever the answer, the West's history of exploiting the Congo seems far from over and still needs to be reckoned with. And until we realize that stopping that cycle benefits all of us, the immense responsibility of protecting Virunga and its inhabitants will fall on a small handful of rangers, people like Andre Balma, Rodri Katembo, and Emmanuel Demerode.
- [39:32]
Emmanuel Demirod
What's remarkable, though, is the unflinching commitment of the 700 Rangers who continue to to protect the park in spite of the loss of their colleagues. So it really is possibly the most difficult moment we've faced. But it's certainly not a moment where anyone feels like giving up.
- [40:00]
Zach Goldbaum
Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondry.com survey next time on Lawless Planet. When a new company explodes on the scene promising a revolutionary clean energy truck, its CEO is hailed as a techno messiah. But is he a savior or a scammer? And whenever someone says something like, oh, your truck is total fake, I instantly ran out to our vehicle, pulled it up and drove. That son of a bitch. We use a lot of sources for our episodes, and this week we relied heavily on the Netflix documentary Virunga, as well as reporting by Global Witness, Human Rights Watch, National Geographic, and and of course, Melanie Gooby Lawless Planet is produced and hosted by me, Zach Goldbaum. Brit Brown wrote this episode. Our senior producer and senior story editor is Derek John. Senior producers for wondery are Peter A.R. cooney and Andy Herman. Our senior managing producer is Nick Ryan. Our managing producer is Sarah Kenny Corrigan. Our associate producer is Lexi Peary. Music and sound design by Kenny Cooper. Enthusiac dialogue edit by George Drabing Hicks. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez. For Frieza N Sync Fact checking by Naomi Barr. Our legal counsel is Deb Droze. Executive producers are Marsha Louie, Erin o', Flaherty, n' J' Jeri Eaton and Jenny Lauer. Beckman for wondering. Thanks for listening. See you next week.