there are a multitude of issues that are
impacting Berenger four million people
living just a day’s walk away from the
parks border and most people have
nothing but nature to rely on so that
obviously puts an enormous amount of
pressure on the park and his principles
of protecting the natural resources in
addition to that you’ve got somewhere in
the region of five to eight thousand
armed militia that are vying for control
of the natural resources we looked at
the story from two sides you know we as
the team from Explorer we we thought
that it was imperative that we gained
unique access to an element of the story
I haven’t told before working with those
Park Rangers Emanuel Derman Road and his
team these are people that on a daily
basis face bullets
now the statistics are extraordinary
it’s singly the most dangerous place to
work in conservation on the planet 140
people have died in the last 15 years
that’s more that’s one a month so these
are the bravest souls out there
so that was one side and then flipping
to the other
the my my there a particularly tricky
group to deal with because they’re
mostly comprised of young kids from 11
through to 21 years old and these kids
are born of trauma they’ve witnessed the
horrific systematic pillaging of their
villages and they banded together for a
multitude of reasons but one is revenge
power banded under the gun some form of
camaraderie some form of family and the
cocktail of adolescence ak-47s and
alcohol is never going to be an easy one
so being with them was fairly
challenging but their objective at least
is expressed to me was to defend the
park for the people’s rights that live
on the outskirts
I think one of the really important
messages of our film is that there’s a
really complex set of historical factors
that have forged the day to day reality
of this area what Emanuel and the
Virunga Lions are doing is trying to
create infrastructure that will nurture
growth in the form of education
healthcare electrification of region
defense of the national parliament and I
think that’s a really really really
positive message
impacting Berenger four million people
living just a day’s walk away from the
parks border and most people have
nothing but nature to rely on so that
obviously puts an enormous amount of
pressure on the park and his principles
of protecting the natural resources in
addition to that you’ve got somewhere in
the region of five to eight thousand
armed militia that are vying for control
of the natural resources we looked at
the story from two sides you know we as
the team from Explorer we we thought
that it was imperative that we gained
unique access to an element of the story
I haven’t told before working with those
Park Rangers Emanuel Derman Road and his
team these are people that on a daily
basis face bullets
now the statistics are extraordinary
it’s singly the most dangerous place to
work in conservation on the planet 140
people have died in the last 15 years
that’s more that’s one a month so these
are the bravest souls out there
so that was one side and then flipping
to the other
the my my there a particularly tricky
group to deal with because they’re
mostly comprised of young kids from 11
through to 21 years old and these kids
are born of trauma they’ve witnessed the
horrific systematic pillaging of their
villages and they banded together for a
multitude of reasons but one is revenge
power banded under the gun some form of
camaraderie some form of family and the
cocktail of adolescence ak-47s and
alcohol is never going to be an easy one
so being with them was fairly
challenging but their objective at least
is expressed to me was to defend the
park for the people’s rights that live
on the outskirts
I think one of the really important
messages of our film is that there’s a
really complex set of historical factors
that have forged the day to day reality
of this area what Emanuel and the
Virunga Lions are doing is trying to
create infrastructure that will nurture
growth in the form of education
healthcare electrification of region
defense of the national parliament and I
think that’s a really really really
positive message
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