Dr. Terese Hart is a scientist and conservationist. She has spent over 30 years in the Congo where many significant events of her life have taken place. There she met her husband (Dr. John Hart) and gave birth to two of her three daughters. Under the support of New York Zoological Society, together they studied many aspects of the Ituri Forest, including the uses of it’s pharmacological contents, the socio-economic impact of human migrations, and most famously, the Okapi. While there, she helped setup a Research and Training Center that eventually led to the Okapi Wildlife Reserve (a world heritage site.) She also briefly served as the director of the Wildlife Conservation Society-Congo out of Kinshasa.
Some of the Hart’s time in the Ituri Forest was spent with the Bambutis, among whom was our favorite – Kenge. A documentary available at Google Video, Hearts of Brightness, describes their time there and work studying the Okapi (link at the bottom).
Currently, she is involved in a new project known as TL2 where she leads operations as the coordinator. I got a chance to ask her some questions last week while she’s visiting the States. Below are her replies.
What have you been doing with your time since leaving the WCS-C?I along with my husband, John, who also left WCS and a group of other people we have worked with over the years are exploring a new area of DR Congo with the objective of creating a protected area. The area we call TL2 for the three rivers of central DR Congo: Tshuapa, Lomami and Lualaba. Details here: http://www.bonoboincongo.com/
Why did you decide to leave?
Some new people in NY. A new concept of WCS-Congo – no longer the place for me.
[New York is WCS-central]
WCS grew a great deal since my husband and I joined (mid 80s). Its funding also changed from the private donations of generous and non-demanding NY wealth to short term agency donations or grants that required proposals and reports. The direction in NY grew and had its own needs and own desires for “making sense” of its international program. Result: much less freedom for opportunistic or grass-roots conservation growth…something we felt was essential in a country where lawless rebels and conservation compete for the same land.
Do you still spend time in the Congo?
Eight to ten months a year where I am director of the TL2 Project. I am in the USA this month as my middle daughter becomes a mom (and John and I grandparents).
Tell us more about the TL2 project. I understand yourself, your husband and your colleagues are working to track down Bonobos and Okapis. How exactly do you find these creatures?
We have just moved to this website: http://www.bonoboincongo.com/about-us/
We are talking about hundreds and hundreds of km in dug-out and on-foot. We use signs (dung, nests, feeding sign) and sometimes we are delighted to actually see bonobo and okapi in their forest. The fear is that bushmeat hunting will take them out before they are adequately protected…already there are large areas of “empty” forest.
What is your day to day work like (within this project)? Is it a lot of surveying and cataloging?
We work as a team (again look at website). My own role includes information and political facilitation…this is really fascinating because political facilitation means everything from a small village to national ministries.
What are some of your most vivid memories of your years in Africa?
a) Vivid and frightening – our 6 week old daughter almost died (1982) of bronchitis..can’t mention this without heart felt thanks to mission hospital in Nyankunde (destroyed recently in Hema-Lendu wars) and the Mission Aviation Fellowship.
b) Vivid and frightening – our girls’ teacher (an ex-peace corps worker) attacked by crocodile when bathing with my daughters. She lost her arm but survived. Extremely tough and brave woman.
c) Vivid and awe inspiring – putting a radio collar on an okapi in a pit.
d) Vivid, awe inspiring and frightening – coming face to face with elephant around a corner on a narrow forest trail.
Do you have any fond memories of Kenge?
I could not have done my PhD without Kenge. He was very bright and very articulate. He would grasp what was needed and make it happen. “You need to distinguish between related species? Ok – look at these characters.” “You need the flowers of that canopy tree? OK- we will climb it.” “You need to see a different kind of forest? Well lets go, it will take a day to get there, bring lots of food.” He had a great sense of humor, would understate the obvious, and make fun of us along with everyone else.
And he was genuinely fond of us. He would unexpectedly give us wonderful gifts. This might sound odd as an example: but once he went out alone hunting and killed an okapi with a spear; it was a very big event. He did it for his daughter’s “coming out”. That evening he quietly brought us the most choice and significant part of the carcass – the full udder.
But Kenge was an alcoholic and that was always a problem between us. As the years went on it became a bigger problem and I as had more people working on projects we could not overlook his being late or absent on account of drunkenness. He tried casting out the demons of alcoholism traditionally. He tried swearing off. But it never worked…and he would drink the most fearsome of local brews.
Do/did the dangers of living in rebel territories deter you?
I have rarely felt personally threatened….Although we have fled (to avoid being threatened) a couple of times.
Care to speculate on the future of African civil wars?
Sigh – no I don’t want to speculate. Conservation has to be strong enough with wide enough support to work in a wide variety of situations; otherwise extinction is just waiting for the first political slip up.
What is a solution?
For conservation it is obviously not just good enough to have the national gov’t proclaim a protected area, there has to be local support and support by the land holding ethnic group and by both the powerless and the powerful. Just last year when one ethnic group worked to create a protected area in another (rival) ethnic group’s area, several groups of bonobo which had survived close to villages disappeared and conservationists were run out of a village. That is conservation gone wrong.
How passionate or apathetic are the average locals of their natural heritage?
That is very variable. Some of the strongest conservation feelings come when outside groups (foresters, mining companies, rival groups (see above)…) want to exploit a forest that traditionally belonged to a local group. Conservation has to be able to use this sense of local pride and ownership if it is going to be successful.
How has formal conservation changed through the decades?
I can only speak from my own experience within one group (WCS). It went from allowing a great deal of autonomy to individual researchers/conservationists to attempting to build a centrally controlled organization. I think that most big organizations are similar. Small organizations have more flexibility – and can generally be closer to the ground and respond more quickly to needs and changing situations.
Is there any particular aspect of it that you don’t like?
Any part of conservation I don’t like? Watching slow (or rapid) declines in animal populations and not being able to effectively counter it in even a small area….That can be for any or several of many different reasons….
There is a certain amount of turf-protecting that happens in Conservation. Sometimes it is best to allow one vision and one organization to get things underway. Where we have seen things go wrong is where a big conservation organization is “taken for a ride”. They accept without critical evaluation what a local “entrepreneur” posing as “their conservationist” tells them is being carried out on the ground. All good for society publicity, but an area becomes off-limits, and results highly suspect.
There are no schools of conservation, yet a larger fighting force is needed. What do you propose is a way to attract attention?
Conservation needs allies in science, journalism, and politics. I don’t think that it needs schools but rather classes in all schools and champions in all walks of life. It needs more air time, print space, etc.
The gorilla massacre of 2007, where were you?
I was in Kinshasa
Do you/did you have any personal suspicions in the case?
I knew that there were some very negative people in positions of power that affected conservation. I think that the Nat Geo article was quite good. There are some excellent people working for conservation in Goma…absolutely top rate. But these are often fighting a battle against forces strengthened by the continuing war.
North America is rife with green fads such as the use of cloth grocery bags, and fluorescent light bulbs? Is this a really a solution? If not, what more needs to be done?
If people individually reduce their impact on the environment – it is a good thing. But many environment problems must be addressed globally and we must figure out ways for people who are able to make their small environmental contribution at home to make a small environmental contribution in other places around the globe with the same certainty of a true impact as when they personally only use cloth grocery bags. I am not only talking about global warming or other huge global phenomena but also local impacts such as deforestation or commercial bushmeat hunting in a country with a very poor population unlikely to be able to save its own resources unaided.
Ultimately, the power over nature lies in the hands of large economies and militaries. Can we transform the way these operate?
Well we have to try, don’t we?
What’s it like to step down in Kinshasa, and visit a gorilla reserve for a first timer? Is it really as idealistic as we might imagine or is it commercialized by now?
At this time very little is successfully commercialized for tourists in DR Congo. Gorilla viewing more than other activities but the experience is still very raw. Wonderfully so, I think. You almost certainly won’t step down in Kinshasa though if you are gorilla viewing but rather enter the Congo from the east (ie enter Goma to visit the gorillas of Virunga Nat Park or enter Bukavu to visit gorillas in Kahuzi Biega Nat Park. These are not the only parks or places with the gorillas but they are the only places where habituation has occurred)
To what extent has the forest cover reduced in the recent decades?
Varies in different areas (very little in the TL2 where we are working). Some good studies happening using satellite imagery (WRI and CARPE…)
All unreal expectations and hopes aside, where do you think will we be in 50 years time?
My hope, and I feel that it is possible, is that there will be a large and effective conservation area in the TL2 area of Congo. To think larger than what I am immediately working on is hard….. I do feel generally that we have to work area by area and we have to craft our efforts such that any success will be an important success and that there will not be large wasted efforts.
So there you have it, straight from the horse’s mouth. We hear so much about all the politics and adventures behind conservation, so I feel very privileged to hear what happens behind the scenes from a person with such experience. I thank Dr. Hart for answering these questions for us and putting up with a noob interviewer, and offer her and her husband congrats on becoming grandparents!
** References
Hearts of Brightness – Google Video
NatGeo Article on the Virunga Massacre
Many Americans are familiar with the term 
In the Teeth of Rainbows – Part 2
Friday, September 12th, 2008Humanism and the Need for Wonder
What makes us human? What simply outlines and describes a human being? Whilst I would love to delve more into this, it is not the focus. Rather my point is this: The fact that we can pose such a question is itself something to be awed about. We like to think, arrogantly, we know what “intelligence” is, what “stress”, what “being human” is. We struggle with these concepts all the time. And I find John and Mary Gribbin’s answer the most correct, in their book of the same name: “Being human simply means being one of a variety of animal on planet Earth.” (1)
So should humanism rather be considered along the lines of PETA – that bizarre organisation that has turned into a cult? Why don’t we consider people when we fight for animal rights? We know through evidence that we are animals. There is no ‘seat for the soul’ or any form of Cartesian dualism, through which a spirit can slither and take residence. We are animals – of this there can be no doubt. If you doubt me, investigate our closest cousins, chimps. Helping, sharing, caring all linger alongside warfare, brutality and conquest (2). Our genetic makeup matches theirs 99.8% – the genes are of course exactly the same. People have a hard time realising their cousins are not just swinging from tree to tree but are those daffodils underneath too. That all life on earth reproduces essentially the same way is testament to the awe-inspiring realisation that we are all related. Not just us humans but yourself and your favourite goldfish, plant or flower.
Thus: What separates us from the chimpanzees, animal rights groups are trying to “save”? David Attenborough asked this, too:
It is these sorts of realisations that science affords which spurn people toward more supernaturalist ideologies. We might refer to these as Unweaved Rainbow Realisations, after Keats’ charge against Newton. Once people’s rainbows have shattered into a thousand tinkling shards of painful truth, they are more inclined to seek other, more industrious rainbows (4). Rainbows up in the sky dictating our births (astrology); rainbows too complex for science to demolish (god, theology and the meanings of ‘holy’ books); rainbows that disguise themselves as valid (creationism and intelligent design); and rainbows, which once tasted, heal and help (homeopathy, crystal healing, angel-therapy). The pots of gold, though illusions, are still enticing. People’s yearning for beauty, meaning and wonder are a thirst for the numinous. And, like a man denied water in a desert, the illusion can still be as enticing as the actual: A mirage is no less enticing for not being true.
How then are we to promote humanism in the teeth of “rainbows”? Even by postulating science we seem to tread on our own toes: through science we appear to reduce humanity to simply being animals. There appears to be nothing “special” about us. And science trumps rainbows again and again. Humanity’s flight from reason is beginning to sound like the blur of jet-engines. Science’s answers are breed and breathe, not helpful in defining meaning.
And in the face of this, we know people would choose mirages over empty sand. But why do people choose superstition again and again? Science appears to make life dull, meaningless and utterly worthless. As I’ve said and as is my main point: science does in itself give no answer. It is a tool to discover the world and universe. It is the most powerful tool – so powerful that we have established facts that are true throughout the universe. No superstition can make such a bold claim and justify it.
But with all its power and beauty, science appears to dissolve humans from their core into lifeless husks pushed and manipulated by bacteria and a fragile brain. As Bertrand Russell put it at the beginning of What I Believe: “Man is a part of Nature, not something contrasted with Nature. His thoughts and his bodily movements follow the same laws that describe the motion of stars and atoms.”(5) People’s usual reaction is the sound of a rainbow shattering: No! I refuse to be scientifically measurable and subject to those same laws! I am special!
Yet, if we stop, if we breathe, if we ponder perhaps the rainbow reforms. Consider: a rainbow is no less beautiful in that we know it is a mixture of light and condensation. And life is no less beautiful, miraculous or awe-inspiring just because we are subject to physical laws. In fact we are not subjects, we are discoverers. The word “law” implies prescriptive, whereas Natural Laws are descriptive as the sky is blue. You can not defy gravity, deny germs. That is part of Natural Laws. Understanding these Laws has helped us create a better society (we have eradicated smallpox through our understanding of natural laws, to name a small example; we are able to make crops that help billions of chronically poor thanks to people like the great Nobel laureate Norman Borlaugh).
Yes. We are subject to the same descriptive equations that fit anything. If there is one human here and another human there, that makes two humans. Descriptions do not make it any less amazing that we are around to calculate such a simple matter! I find it incredible that I am “obeying” the same Laws as a entire planets and powerful stars (from where we all came in the first place).
I find that my connection to the universe is there, literally written in the stars. I do not want to be above the world I want to be part of it. I do not want to be some special being observing animals, I want to be part of a great animal kingdom myself. That we have touched the moon, the stars, the sky, that we all have loves, hates, fears, is testament to our need to belong. We all want to belong to something higher or greater than us – the aspirations for the numinous, by traversing the paths of rainbows – but I think humanism finally launches hooks to pull those rainbows down. Like a great sheet it must tumble. We must bring ourselves back down to earth.
We need only grasp that we are here, alone and dependant upon each other for this to work. Though the rainbows are beautiful, we must not forget they are still people. Whether you see a rainbow or a mixture of light and condensation, we are the same. We want to belong and there is nothing better to belong to than that great ape: Homo sapiens. We must eradicate the fear that science destroys the numinous and show it inspires the grandest connection of all: We are connected to the stars, the planets, the galaxies. All of us. If there is anything greater to be connected to, I have not found it. And I will even make a prediction based on the stars: I do not think there will ever be anything greater than this concurrent connection. Rejoice in your belonging to the cosmos.
And don’t forget to breathe.
REFERENCES
1. Gribbin, J. and Gribbin, M. (1998) Being Human. London: Phoenix Paperbacks.
2. I hate the term “going ape” – I find other apes to be more civil than most humans.
3. Attenborough, D. (1986) ‘The Compulsive Communicators’ in Life on Earth: A Natural History. London: Fontana Paperbacks, p. 302
4. Dawkins, R. (2006) Unweaving the Rainbow. London: Penguin.
5. Russell, B. (2001) What I Believe. London: Routledge
Tags: atheism, Humanism, science, wonder
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