FAIR's Rising Generation

The person who inspired me to do the awesome people profiles in the first place was Paulin Ngobobo. I had read an article about him and the mountain gorillas of Virunga Park in National Geographic and was really touched by his bravery.

To set the scene a bit, Virunga Park is in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There were currently two guerrilla armies and the Congolese army fighting with each other, displacing thousands of people. Tourism drawn by the gorillas used to be a major source of income for the region, Virunga Park being the most geographically and biologically diverse park in Africa, but with so much turmoil, tourists were reluctant to go. With a relatively heavy population nearby, many people turned to burning the old hardwood trees of Virunga park, making them into coal in mud ovens, and using them for fuel. Paulin began to work for Virunga park, and soon found that almost everyone he worked with was corrupt, stealing wages from those beneath them, taking bribes to not report poaching, pocketing tourism money that was not rightfully theirs, or cutting down acres of trees to turn into coal. Paulin took measures to get the park rangers their full and rightful wages, and to stop the illegal coal trade that was destroying the park. He soon found that his superior, Honore Mashagiro was the kingpin behind the coal trade, using his position as park director to smuggle coal out of the forest and pocket a pretty penny for himself. When Paulin started to investigate too deeply into matters, Mashagiro had him imprisoned and beaten.

Then, six mountain gorillas were shot execution style. It wasn’t the work of poachers, because none of their body parts were harvested. Paulin was accused of killing them and it became clear that he was being framed for the murder of six mountain gorillas in an attempt to make him stay out of the way of the illegal coal trade. That, in a nutshell, is what happened.

All I can say is that it takes a lot of courage to maintain integrity when the people around you are corrupt, when times are harsh, and your life could very well be at stake if you try to be honest.

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