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Pygmies and Gorillas at War
- Script
Pygmies pick fruit In a jungle
clearing that used to be their home, pygmies harvest mangoes from the tree that
once gave them both shelter and food.
It's
no longer home.
Donations
raised in Australia have paid to move them out of the rain forest.
Gorilla A
couple of hundred kilometres south, foreign donations - in far larger sums -
protect mountain gorillas by keeping them in the rain forest.
Uganda
is home to both pygmies and mountain gorillas ... both are threatened with
extinction.
Misty mountains Nine hours south of Kampala a dusty road - and
civilisation - end in the mist and mountains of the impenetrable forest.
It's
home to 300 mountain gorillas - half the world's remaining population.
Park Office There's no easy way to see the gorillas ...
and no cheap way either.
Official Counts Money You need more than 200 dollars for fees,
guides, trackers and porters.....
And
a mere head cold automatically disqualifies you from making the trek into the
jungle....
Official When they get these infectious diseases
they die.
Reporter So what do we need to know before we get
there.
Guide Now
I want to tell you some do's and don'ts.....
One
soon gets the message: visitors are barely tolerated and only because both
Government and conservationists need the revenue.
In rain forest The forest is a national
park that survives entirely on tourist income.
The
search for gorillas can take eight hours or more .... adult gorillas chew their
way through 25 kilos of vegetation a day so each
family is constantly on the move foraging for food.
At nest The hunt picks up pace when the trackers find the nest
families make each night.
Guide They
squash down this vegetation. This is
called mimopsis and they are very soft and then they put it down on the
ground.
Reporter So they lie on this.
Guide Yes,
every night they have to make a nest and this is
rocky. So
we've got to keep on looking heh.
Reporter It's a long walk.
Guide Yes.
It's
hard going - if you're not used to it.
And
there's no guarantee you'll see the gorillas ... only one family of twelve has
been acclimatised to human visitors....
...
and a second group is gradually being habituated ...
Gorillas Long before anyone else can, the
trackers spot them sheltering from the rain.
It's
dark, it's gloomy, it's wet - and it's frustratingly hard to see - but that's
rain forest for you.
Our
money buys us exactly one hour to watch in silence from not less than 5 metres
away .... while the adult gorillas guardedly watch back....
Gorillas There are - we're told - twelve gorillas
in this family ... females, babies ... and a male silver back who's two metres
tall, ferociously strong ... but somewhat shy.
Gorillas The hour's up ... we haven't actually
seen as much as we'd like of an endeavour the world's leading
conservationists see as a last-ditch stand against extinction.
Interview with:
Ben Otto
Permanent Sec.
Uganda Dept. of How important are the gorillas do you think from the
point of
Parks, Wildlife, view of Uganda as opposed to preserving a gorilla
Tourism & Antiquities population.
Do you see them as somehow kind of symbol of what you are trying to do.
Ben Otto Well, I think that gorillas, in my view,
are very important for our tourism industry but most importantly is for the
conservation aspect. Since two thirds of
the world's population of mountain gorillas now exist in Uganda, unless we
conserve them gorillas will be out of the globe.
Open Plains and It's only recently that Uganda has re-discovered such
animals concern
for nature .... for decades, wildlife was decimated ...
In
the 70s, under Idi Amin's notoriously bloody rule, soldiers slaughtered animals
for food, for profit - and for target practice.
Elephants on plain Poaching and civil war continued the
carnage into the 80s.
Top shots of river A new national park in the far west
of Uganda ... one of 6
valley declared
in the past three years. For a century
the rainforest here has been steadily chopped back for its timber, its minerals
and its land.
Pygmies As
part of the new image building, Uganda's pygmy tribes have been told they've
got to get out because the forest and its wildlife have to
be preserved.
Pygmies dance The impact has been
devastating ... after thousands of years of living in the jungle the pygmies
are fast becoming fringe dwellers.
What
we're watching is not just a culture disintegrating ..
but a race of people hovering (like the gorillas) on the brink of extinction.
Interview with:
Barry Chapman Now here we have a group of people that really have
been neglected. They have an opportunity
to fit into society just like you and me if they're given the chances ....
Barry
Chapman heads the Ugandan branch of ADRA - the international relief arm of the
Adventist Church....
Barry Chapman If we're going to make some choices about where we are
going to put our money I think the Pygmies really should rate at the top of the
list in front of gorillas.
Reporter with Pygmy ADRA has spent the past 18 months helping
to encourage
Edward Edward's
clan of sixty pygmies to re-settle on open lands.
Edward This
is the house. This is for me - I live in
here.
Reporter By yourself?
Edward Yes.
Edward
still lives in traditional nomadic accommodation. Easily built and just as easily left behind.
Edward's kitchen You can put food here for cooking.
He's
been here seven months .... and still has pitifully few possessions to aid him
in his new pastoral life.
Reporter So these are the new houses are they
Edward?
Edward This
is the house over here.
So this is the future for Uganda's six thousand Pygmies.
Reporter Can we look at one?
Edward OK.
ADRA
has built this group a dozen huts with some of the 20-thousand dollars its
raised for them in Australia.
Reporter Can I look inside.
Edward OK,
enter.
Reporter How many people live in here, Edward.
Edward Six
People.
Reporter It's very small for six people.
Edward Yeah.
Apart
from a grant of the land they now live on, the Ugandan Government offers the
Pygmies no other assistance.
Though
settled, they're at a loose end...
Woman with baby They're happier here: life is less rigorous than in the
jungle: but they've moved into a settled life and an economic system that is
totally foreign to them.
Cooking/peel bananas Today, meat is rarely on the menu ....
instead, bananas are a staple diet ... along with the leaves and herbs they
gather from nearby.
Sometimes
there's fish to be had from a river several kilometres away - but they haven't
yet come to grips with fishing.
Cooking women And because they're
traditionally nomadic, they have little concept of agriculture ...
The
Pygmies wouldn't show us their marijuana plantation, but it's obviously an
important part of their life ... and so is getting drunk on beer: when they can
afford it.
Fighting and arguing One can only fear for the Pygmies and their
culture ...
Their
only income is from the occasional muzungu - white tourists - who come to gawp.