Omer and Alain left on Sunday July 23rd, 2020 for Tayna to hand to the Tayna monitoring team and stakeholders the field equipment donated by the Thin Green Line via Gorilla Organization, obtained thanks to the active advocacy led by Dr. Ian Redmond. 

This donation that falls in the scope of the management plan for the integrated conservation for Kisimba-Tayna-Usala community reserves, initiated by Dr. Neil Wilson with strong support of Iveta, was made of 45 kits, each containing  a bag, a sleeping bag, a raincoat, a pair of boots, a torch, a knife, a drinking cup, and a face mask. 

On board a Hilux 4X4, with the 45 kits well packed in the car, we first drove to the OPRP checkpoint located at around 7 km from Goma. The military intelligence officers who were there wanted to know what we carried in our car. We told them some of the items and then they asked us for the goods document. We gave them the waybill that they brought to their provincial commander who came to the checkpoint for work inspection. On reading the document he told them to give back the document to us and let us continue because the goods were in compliance with our work. We reached Kiwanja town at 11 am and at 1 pm we drove in a convoy escorted by FRDC until Kanyabayonga town. From there every vehicle drives on its own. We continued till Kirumba town where we spent our night. 

The following day we drove to Lubero and took the left. At Kaviru, at 10 km from Lubero, we met Jackson MBEKE, Director of GRACE project who had been waiting for us at a small farm. After we had had a delicious meal with him at the farm, we drove along with him to Kasugho safely, a road he is very familiar.

Meeting with the monitoring team. 

At Kasugho, we immediately met with the monitoring team for the Tayna Nature Reserve who had been waiting for us. In a meeting, we told them, as member association of the UGADEC platform that we had come to exchange with them about the progress of their reserve, but also that we have come with some few research equipment for their reserve. 

In reaction to our message, the President of the Board of Directors of the Tayna Resrve, Mr. Ndeya Paluku , told us about the state of the reserve, and even before they saw the donation, expressed his gratitude in Kipiri, a local language , saying that a crab has four legs, two small and two long ones. Someone who has been able to give the small crab’s legs will be able to give the long ones. 

On unpacking the kits, the joy was general. The monitoring team, through their one chief of station said now they have got needed equipment for monitoring and research in their reserve and their community development.

Unpacking the kits. 

The President of the Board of Directors of the Tayna Nature Reserve said that this equipment needs to be well kept for sustainable of their project.

On Wednesday, July 26, 2020, we visited some other projects related to Tayna Nature Reserve and UGADEC, maily the GRACE project, a sanctuary with a family of 14 gorillas made of babies rescued from the UGADEC areas. Grown up today, we could see them in the UGADEC enclosure in the year 2006 before they were transferred to GRACE Sanctuary. It was a pathetic moment because the foundation of the project is the community reserves of UGADEC from which these orphans were recovered. One is called Kighoma from the Tayna Nature Reserve, another one is Pinga from the Kisimba Ikobo Nature Reserve, another is Lubutu from REGOMUKI, etc.

Another visit was at TCCB, the Tayna Center for Conservation Biology, a well built University to host a graduate and master degree university students from different areas, near a sanctuary and a reserve, to serve as a laboratory.

On Thursday, before we returned to Goma on Friday, we had an exchanged with some other stakeholders from Tayna in Butembo City.

We would like to thank GRACE-Disney that has supplied us with fuel to reach Tayna. We would like to ask some other partners in the framework in this Management Plan to see how to bring support to this effort for Gorilla, Chimpanzee, Okapi and Elephant conservation in the Kisimba-Tayna and Usala area.