Empty Hands, Open Arms

July 22, 2013
Through a series of interviews and travelogues, novelist and memoirist Béchard (Cures for Hunger) recounts his efforts, alongside Bonobo Conservation Initiative (BCI) president Sally Jewell Cox, to save the nearly extinct bonobo chimpanzee. Since the Congolese have a complicated relationship with both the bonobos and the rainforest, BCI takes a “grassroots” approach, working with existing institutions to effect change. Strategies include laying the groundwork for ecotourism, which could boost both the bonobo population and the Congolese economy. Despite the author’s good intentions, the narrative becomes diffuse as he tries to tackle the Congo’s history, and the complex political and economic factors involved in global warming and the destruction of the rainforest. Béchard is at his best when sharing his own insights; he makes his most salient points when describing his firsthand experience among the Congolese, narrating his travels through Djolu and Kokolopori by motorcycle and canoe.

August 1, 2013
Journalist Bechard (Cures for Hunger: A Memoir, 2012, etc.), a foreign correspondent familiar with war zones, probes beneath headlines describing the Congo as "a country of such inhumanity that we find it incomprehensible" and finds another, more hopeful reality. The author explains that he was drawn to the Congo because its tropical rain forests play a crucial role in preventing climate change. As the area has become more stable politically after years of civil war, the threat of deforestation is looming due to the renewed, large-scale corporate exploitation of its valuable mineral resources. This also endangers the small remaining population of bonobos, "humanity's closest living relative alongside the chimpanzee," whose only natural habitat is the Congolese rain forest. Establishment of more traditional national parks, which exclude local farming, is not a viable solution, since the forests have become a refuge for Congolese forced out of their homes by civil war. Bechard learned that a small NGO, Bonobo Conservation Initiative, founded by American conservationists, offers an alternative model: a partnership among the BCI villages to preserve the rain forest and protect the bonobos. Villagers agree to voluntarily restrict their farming to designated areas; in return, they are employed in various jobs--e.g., tracking the bonobos and guarding them from poachers. The BCI takes responsibility for providing medical care and primary schools, as well as access to higher education. Graduates trained in environmental science then become part of the management. While the immediate BCI focus is to preserve the bonobo population, its broader purpose is to develop ecotourism as a viable economic alternative to corporate exploitation. The author profiles Americans and Congolese who are involved in this visionary effort to meld traditional and modern values in service of a planetary imperative. Bechard's adventurous travels in the Congo offer spice to this rich, complex account.

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