We initially went to this area in 1999 to see if there were any significant animal populations left. We had heard that they had mostly been decimated. After exploring the region, we found that there were still significant populations of wildlife, but that they were in danger of being eradicated.

At the end of the trip, we arrived in Rafai, the village at the mouth of the Chinko, and were greeted by the locals without particular surprise, even though having white people floating down the river was pretty remarkable. They said, "You've come—you've finally come to help us." At that point we had a meeting with the local forestry chief, the local village chief, and some other chiefs, and they said, "Look, here's what's going on and you have to take care of it." They basically didn't give us much of a choice.

It's fine to simply float down an unexplored river, doing a first descent and having a great time, but there's an ethical obligation at that point to do something more.
 

It had crossed our minds that if the region still supported a significant wildlife population, then it would be worth pr. It hadn't crossed our minds that we would be the ones who would take responsibility for it.

It eventually became clear that the government didn't have the resources or the interest to protect the region and that if it was going to receive any protection the effort was going to have to come from us.
 

The government has outlined certain requirements that we must follow in order to make this effort work. We are to involve the locals on different levels by training them and making them part of our team and also to help set up some local economic arrangements.

We are talking about creating low-cost loans to encourage people to start their own businesses, which I hope will be wildlife oriented. Ecotourism is really the only way to protect the region and its wildlife, and at the same time it will give economic support to the local people.
 

It's definitely both. The villagers depend on wildlife for their subsistence.

The local economic enterprises, primarily big-game hunting, that were the only source of outside income for these people have totally gone by the wayside because of the poachers. I have no doubt that [big-game] hunting could resume once the area becomes free from poaching.
 

The main concern is for the stability of the government in the CAR. Even though the government is democratically elected, it has been subjected to repeated overthrow attempts. There are opposition figures who are not willing to accept this government and are interested in violent overthrow.
 

The poachers are obviously well armed and they're in a lucrative business and aren't going to be interested in listening to advice from us. There will be some confrontations, so you have to assume that there will be gunfire.

These people are lawless; they're basically criminals who are not easily intimidated.
 

It's not an issue in this region. You're talking about [poachers] who are not in the country legally, who are well armed and who are not going to tolerate being arrested.

Certainly to us, arresting them would be a reasonable option, but we wouldn't even have anyplace to put these people. You have to have a jail first.
 

There will probably be close to 400 people in all. There will be a lot of locals who will be working with us. The plan is to have units that will consist of some of our people and some of the local people.

The villagers have set up self-defense committees and have been trying to deal with the poachers as best they can, but they use very low-tech solutions such as poison arrows. They are certainly attuned to what is going on, and they're at home in the forest and know how to get by, how to survive and that type of thing, which will be very helpful to us. But they're not trained in terms of high-tech operations.

I think it's important in terms of diseases like Ebola. We are seeing a horde of strange diseases coming out of central Africa, and we need these kinds of wild places to be able to understand the ecology of the diseases.
 

—Fred Turner
Photograph by Chris Andersen/Aurora