Aping the Hype
Great footage of the newly discovered population of lowland gorillas in Congo Brazzaville accompanies the online story at NPR. But we at iWild wonder why so many news organizations forgot to ask the hard questions.
According to NPR, the Wildlife Conservation Society, whose researchers conducted the census that revealed these populations, “has helped large logging operations in other parts of Congo learn to harvest trees sustainably and to limit poaching operations that rely on logging roads.” Really? What exactly constitutes “sustainable” logging in the Congo? Exactly how much has WCS “helped”? Independent journalists—including Dale Peterson, in Eating Apes (University of California Press), his 2003 book about bushmeat—have questioned such easy assertions, particularly regarding the relationship between WCS and the major logging corporation, Congolaise Industrielle des Bois.
“The Wildlife Conservation Society writes its own report card…and gives itself generally good grades,” Peterson wrote. In the future, NPR and other news organizations might want to take WCS’s self-generated report card with a larger grain of salt.
