02/12/2022 Angola
“If you ever come across anything suspicious like this item, please do not pick it up, contact your local law e enforcement agency for assistance”.
Words and Images by Tommy Trenchard
From the window of a single-engine Cessna at 6,000 feet, it’s easy to see why Angolans call this part of their country ‘the land at the end of the world’. Dense forests stretch as far as the eye can see, broken only by meandering crystalline rivers that steam gently in the cold dawn air. Below us lies the undulating expanse of. Mavinga National Park, a remote wilderness of leafy miombo woodland that was once teeming with wildlife and home to some of Africa’s largest herds of elephants. From up here, it looks pristine and peaceful, but appearances can be deceptive. In the pale, sandy soil, buried out of sight, lie tens of thousands of landmines left over from Angola’s decades-long civil war. Most of them have been there since the 1980s but they remain just as deadly today as they were on the day they were laid. With the landmine threat preventing effective conservation work, this former haven for wildlife has been reduced to a shadow of its former self. Loggers pillage the forests for timber and poachers target the few remaining large mammals. Conservationists and rangers are few, and tourists even fewer. As the tiny plane bounces lightly on the thermals, its passengers scan the landscape below us intently. They work for the HALO Trust, the British de-mining charity that has been leading the fight against Angola’s landmines since the mid-1990s. In that time, the organisation has safely destroyed some 100,000 anti-tank and anti-personnel mines from all over the country. And yet, some 20 years after the end of the civil war, there are still thought to be at least 1,000 minefields still to be cleared. Until recently, most de-mining efforts have focused on urban areas, many of which have now been fully cleared of mines. But in the past two years, thanks to a US$60 million injection of funds by the Angolan government, attention has switched to this sparsely populated but ecologically critical part of the country. Clearing it will be no mean feat; the area’s two national parks. ‘The goal is very much to have two fully functioning national parks in the southeast, where human populations and wildlife can coexist,’ explains Rhys Mansel, HALO’s project manager for mine action and conservation. ‘Everyone really appreciates that the economy must diversify from oil and gas to something more sustainable like eco-tourism. But what tourist is going to want to come here, or what park ranger is going to want to patrol here, while the mines are still in existence?’ Throughout the flight, Mansel has been keeping up a running commentary over the roar of the engine, pointing out minefields known and suspected, rivers that were once battlegrounds, and, at one point, an illegal logging truck partially obscured by the trees. I keep my eyes peeled for signs of wildlife but see nothing – no tracks through the bush, no movement of any kind. ‘We’re pretty sure there’s a minefield around that lake,’ says Mansel, pointing out of the plane window towards a series of distant streaks in the otherwise uniform forest below. ‘There’s a lot of survey work still to do.’
Photo-Source: geographical.co.uk
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