Interview with Anna Lacey, MDG Fellow 2008

 

What was the main focus of your trip to Rwanda?

When I first looked at the eight Millennium Development Goals, I noticed that there was only one looking at the environment, or conservation. So I wondered whether, in the face of the goals looking at human development, would conservation stand a chance? When you're looking at whether a child would survive, or get basic medical care, with limited resources, you can understand why people would want to use those resources for helping people, over helping the natural environment. So I wanted to see how conservation was viewed, by local people as well as those in power, and to look at current projects that were aiming to include it.

Can you describe one of the most interesting places you went to?

I spent half of my time in the region called Ruhengeri, home to the Volcanoes National Park (right), and the mountain gorillas made famous by Dian Fossey. It’s an interesting area, because the conflict between people and the environment is so stark.

Rwanda as a whole is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, with 9 million people in an area not much bigger than Wales. And this area is the most densely populated area of the country, because of the very fertile volcanic soils. Also, after the war in the 90s it became even more populated, after lots of returnees went to live there. So it’s home to a lot of people, and effectively it’s the bread basket – or rather, the potato basket – of the country.

However, the forests are disappearing. Since the park opened in 1925, it's now half the area. What you have now is forest right next to agricultural land, with no buffer zone separating them (see left). So when people want to cook food, or build a new house, it’s easy to go into the forest late at night and catch an animal or cut some bamboo. The fact is, there isn’t enough land now outside the forest, and the forest’s resources are a tempting option.

So what’s happening to tackle this?

Firstly the government, together with local people, have been putting up a ‘buffalo wall’ around the park land. One aim is to prevent animals, including buffalo, coming out of the park and eating or trampling people’s crops. However, it also deters people from going in.

As well as that, there are revenue sharing schemes, which share the financial benefits of tourism with local people. Because of the gorillas, this area is a big ecotourism destination, and international visitors have to pay $500 per person to be with the gorillas for an hour. At first, it wasn’t clear that any of this money was going to local people, who effectively incur costs from living by the park. So now, the government’s environmental authority is trying to make sure that a proportion of money from tickets gets put into local schemes. It’s key that local people see the direct benefits coming out of conservation activities.

What difficulties did you have reporting on the ground?

My biggest difficulty was with interviewing people, and getting them to express themselves freely. In Rwanda there isn’t great freedom of expression, and often, people only want to give you the official line on something. So for the first week and a half, everyone I interviewed seemed to say exactly the same thing – which was a little suspicious.

I did get people talking more freely though – that happened when I worked through translators, who could talk to local people in Kinyarwanda. I found that the people who had English or French were generally higher up in the system, and so they’d be more likely to stick to the party line; but elsewhere, in villages for example, I could get more frank answers from people who only spoke Kinyarwanda.

On the whole though, people were very friendly and receptive to being interviewed. There was only one occasion when we had a bit of trouble – we went to a village unannounced, and they said we should have asked the village pastor beforehand. But in the end it was fine.

Did you try to speak the local language yourself?

I did – that was one of the most exciting things. I made an effort before and during my stay, and I took a notebook around and made it into a mini dictionary. People responded much better when I tried to speak Kinyarwanda – I could say greetings, plus ‘have a nice day’, ‘I am a journalist’, and ‘I’m staying for one month.’ Normally they’d roll around laughing, but I think it was appreciated.

What did you learn about the issues you were reporting on?

Regarding the MDGs, I learnt a lot about them, as well as some of the difficulties in applying them. But I also learnt about their use as a way to focus attention on important issues. Personally as a journalist, it was great because I made some mistakes and then learnt from those – for example, I forgot to record certain things, and I’ll try not to forget those in future!

It was great to make programmes on topics I haven’t covered before, and it was also good to have the opportunity to go off and find stories spontaneously. For example, on one day I was sat at the project offices of an organisation called Millennium Villages, and a guy offered me a Mars bar. We then got chatting, and it turned out that he was involved in setting up phones and internet cafes in rural villages. I asked if I could come and look at one of his projects, and he was fine with that – so there and then we went off to the villages and I made a piece on it!

What kind of things would you like people to take away from your reports?

Most people in the West think about conservation as things like pandas and rain forests. Actually, it covers just about everything in our environment, including forests, rivers, pollution, making sure soil is fertile, managing agricultural land, and reducing strain on natural resources. And all of these actually underpin the Millennium Development Goals – if you have good water sources, you have better health, while improved agriculture helps people make more money.

After I'd been there for a few weeks, I felt quite disillusioned. I was wondering whether these goals were too far-fetched – how can anyone really achieve them? But as I stayed longer I recognised that, although there are problems with them, we have to have these goals, so that we can focus on what's important.