Congo volcano eruption will hurt wildlife-experts
Date: 21-Jan-02
Country: KENYA
Author: Fiona O'Brien
Nyiragongo is one of eight volcanoes on the borders of Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, a region dense with tropical forests and famously home to rare mountain gorillas.
However the gorillas inhabit only the slopes of the six dormant volcanoes, and experts said they should be safe from direct impact from the destruction inflicted by Nyiragongo on the town of Goma and nearby forest.
"It is unlikely that the forest the gorillas inhabit will be affected greatly," Annette Lanjouw, head of the International Gorilla Conservation Programme, said in a statement.
"However, chimpanzees and other wildlife in the forest around Nyiragongo will probably be devastated."
When Nyiragongo last erupted in 1977, killing scores of people and gutting the town, there were reports of elephants being found in the rubble alongside the human debris of cars and houses.
The east African representative for the World Wide Fund For Nature, Sam Kanyamibwa, said the recent eruption would affect every level of the mountain's ecosystem, from worms to primates.
"The problem is the physical destruction of habitat, and of course the sulphur gases over the area," he told Reuters in Nairobi.
"Obviously some animals have some possibility of moving to other places, snakes for example, but some will be trapped in the area...The impact is enormous."
While the mountain gorillas are too far from Nyiragongo to fear immediate harm, the long-term effects from the volcano's eruption could be more severe.
"The ecological integration in the whole region is going to be affected one way or another," Kanyamibwa said.
"Also the movement of the population, refugees, may lead to some instability in the region. This may lead to some problems for gorillas."
Only about 650 mountain gorillas remain in the world, and more than half of those inhabit the slopes of the six dormant Virunga volcanoes. They are ranked as critically endangered by international wildlife conventions.
There are also fears that the lava pouring into Lake Kivu beside Goma will severely contaminate the water and may even cause explosions, due to the lake's unusual accumulation of carbon dioxide in the lower strata of its basin.