Conserv’Session Conservation Documentary Nights

This Conserv'Session was the third conservation-related screening and discussion session to be organized at Kyoto University main campus. This session aimed at approaching the different issues conservationists and field scientists may face while working in war zone-type conditions. Those conditions were illustrated in the film Virunga from Orlando von Einsiedel (2014) depicting the resource and war conflicts happening in the national park located at the border between DRCongo, Rwanda and Uganda, and which ultimately threaten biodiversity and the rangers protecting the park. Although Virunga national park is a UNESCO World Heritage site, until the film came out, oil investigations were still happening in the park and illegal poaching remains a main threat. To discuss about those issues at the end of the documentary, we invited two field scientists/conservationists who have spent extensive periods of time working in such regions: Pr. Juichi Yamagiwa (Primatologist and President of Kyoto University) and Pr. Naobi Okayasu (Director of the Habitat Conservation Section, Japan Monkey Centre and Specially Appointed Professor at the Wildlife Research Center of Kyoto University)... [Click here to continue reading]
— Cécile Sarabian