Name: A hero of the Congo forest
Uploaded: 2008-07-07T01:00:00Z
Duration: 18 min 4 s
Description: Botanist Corneille Ewango talks about his work at the Okapi Faunal Reserve in the Congo Basin -- and his heroic work protecting it from poachers, miners and raging civil wars.

Botanist Corneille Ewango talks about his work at the Okapi Faunal Reserve in the Congo Basin -- and his heroic work protecting it from poachers, miners and raging civil wars.

A hero of the Congo forest

Protecting Congo’s Okapi Faunal Reserve requires bravery on many fronts. Amid civil war and poaching, researchers risk their lives to rescue plant collections and rare wildlife, even as child soldiers and rebels threaten destruction. One researcher hid scientific treasures in treetops and smuggled thousands of plant specimens to safety by bicycle. The devastation caused by the global demand for minerals like coltan has cost millions of lives and imperiled an ecosystem teeming with elephants, okapi, and unique flora.