The huge central African nation, which last week hosted an international conference on saving primates from feared imminent extinction, is home to three of the world's four great apes: gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos — pygmy chimps whose population has been decimated over the past 15 years.
The population of bonobos, which are unique to the Democratic Republic of Congo, has plummeted from an estimated 100,000 in 1988 to just 10,000 today, according to Friends of Bonobos, a Kinshasa-based conservation group.
Conservationists blame deadly cycles of conflict that have engulfed the Democratic Republic of Congo and surrounding countries in Africa's Great Lakes region as the primary cause for the shrinking great ape habitat.
At the height of the wars, the fighting not only disrupted the placid lives of the apes, killed them or placed them at risk of the bushmeat industry but sent tens of thousands of refugees fleeing into national parks in the east.
"In Virunga park, more than 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) of forest was cleared by some 30,000 refugees, including Rwandans, who fled the 1994 genocide," Kisuki said.
"The conflicts also encouraged the illegal exploitation of natural resources and arms trafficking that fuels poaching," he added.
The Virunga National Park, which covers more than 8,000 square kilometers (3,100 square miles), straddles the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda and the rebel presence in that area continues to drive gorillas from the forests, said Jean-Claude Kyungu, a researcher at the park.
