Science and Innovation

Itsaso Vélez del Burgo is currently the technical director of the Lwiro Primate Rehabilitation Centre (CRPL). She holds a degree in Environmental Sciences from the University of Barcelona (UB) and subsequently studied for a master’s degree in Primatology at the Faculty of Psychology, also at the UB. Last October, she was awarded the Nat Award 2023. On this occasion, we talked to her about what the award means, her involvement with chimpanzees and other primates, the centre where she works, and the problems that the Democratic Republic of Congo is currently facing.

Congratulations on the award! What does it mean to you?

Thank you very much. For me it means that our work is seen and appreciated. Sometimes when you work in such an isolated area of the world you feel a bit lonely and with this award I feel more supported and accompanied.

Where does your vocation for primates come from?

The truth is that my vocation is animals in general. All species are fascinating once you get to know them and study them closely. My vocation was and is ethology, the study of animal behaviour. And when I finished my degree in environmental sciences at the University of Barcelona and discovered that they also offered a master’s degree in primatology, I found the opportunity to combine both disciplines, conservation and ethology.

The Basque Country is not a place where you see many apes. When was the first time you saw one?

In fact, that’s not true, humans are apes, too.

And what apes we are.

Yes, we really are. The first time I saw a chimpanzee was at the Barcelona Zoo, I also remember Floquet de Neu. But I had the opportunity to see them in their natural habitat for the first time in Guinea, in the mountains of Nimba, when I went as a research assistant on a project at the University of Kyoto. These chimpanzees are not used to human presence, so it was very exciting to be able to meet them and observe them without them noticing you first.

Did you interact with them?

A lot of the data we collected was indirectly through their faeces or their nests, but luckily I also had the chance to see them on several occasions and observe their behaviour.

Years go by and you end up at the Lwiro Primate Rehabilitation Centre in the Democratic Republic of Congo. How did that opportunity come about?

Well, it was one of those occasions when you are in the right place at the right time. I was 29 years old when I arrived and my life was heading towards the academic world, although it wasn’t really what I wanted. I wanted a more active, more practical conservation. I went to volunteer for 6 months with the intention of starting a PhD in great ape reintroduction. During that time I was simply collecting behavioural data from a group of males that had just been formed. But in the fifth month, the director, Carmen Vidal, fell seriously ill and had to be evacuated from one day to the next, at which point I decided to stay on, as the centre had been left without a director. A month later, Lorena Aguirre, who had started international aid in 2006, arrived. We get along right from the start and she offered me to stay and work alongside her. And so more than 9 years have passed.

 What did this change in your life mean to you?

For me it meant achieving my dream, working to save the lives of chimpanzees, helping to conserve the species.

Currently, and for some time now, you have been the director of the centre. What is your day-to-day life like there?

Well, I don’t have a routine, I am lucky that my work is very varied. From being a surrogate mother for new arrivals, fundraising, writing projects, designing facilities, working with the community, social networking and my favourite: integrations.

Integrations?

When a primate arrives at the centre and passes the quarantine period and is strong enough to integrate into its new family, we start the integration process. This part of my job gives me the opportunity to spend hours observing the primates. It is necessary to have a good knowledge of their personalities for the process to be successful.

Who is working at Lwiro?

The Lwiro team consists of 61 local staff and three expatriates. From caretakers to sentinels, cooks to veterinarians.

And what role does research play there?

The research we carry out today is mainly in the field of One health, we study zoonoses, always thinking about the conservation of species, but also about improving the lives of the communities that are neighbours to the Kahuzi Biega national park, which is home to families of Grauer’s Gorillas and chimpanzees. Now, for example, we have a project to improve diagnosis and access to treatment for tuberculosis. And we collect and analyse samples from gorillas, chimpanzees, humans and cows around the park. Also with the intention of preventing transmission, especially to the habituated gorilla groups. We do some ethological studies, but less than I would like due to lack of time. Managing a centre like Lwiro is no easy task.

Exactly, there is also a social will at the centre: reintegration, environmental education… In your talk at the NAT Award ceremony, you spoke about a programme with women who are victims of rape.

Yes, this is a very nice project. Since the beginning of international aid, a lot of work has been done with the communities, especially creating income alternatives so that they don’t depend so much on the forest and its resources. But many times these projects failed, and Lorena Aguirre, who is in charge of the community projects and is a psychologist by profession, noticed over the years that most of the people we worked with had traumatic events that prevented them from carrying out “normal” activities in their lives.

And you changed that fact.

This gave rise to the idea of building a centre, the Mutima centre, to offer psychological assistance to the population, particularly women. The WHO considers the Democratic Republic of Congo to be one of the worst countries in which to be born a woman, due to the use of rape as a weapon of war. And one of the pillars of this project is the social reintegration of women victims of sexual aggression, and so the idea arose for some of these women to work in the centre looking after orphans. A story that is told very well in the short film Mama by Pablo de la Chica, which won the Goya last year and tells how Mama Zawadi healed herself by healing the chimpanzees.

What is life like in a country that apparently seems so different from our own?

Well, the Democratic Republic of Congo is a very beautiful country, with spectacular nature and wonderful people. But because of repeated wars and instability there is a lot of suffering. The wars have affected both humans and wildlife, and in a country with so much human suffering it is difficult to do conservation. That’s why we have also always worked to improve the lives of the communities around the centre and the park.

And what is the research like there?

It is curious because the centre is based in a research centre created by the Belgians in colonial times, so Lwiro is a “little bubble” in the reality of the country, as there are many people who have studied masters and doctorates and there are many researchers around us.

What do you value about being at Lwiro?

What I value most is my work. For me, the chimpanzees and other primates that we manage to save and recover are what give me the daily strength to continue, because for them we are everything, they would not have had a chance if centres like Lwiro did not exist.

And what difficulties do you encounter?

The most complicated thing is the lack of family and friends, and the luxuries we are used to in our western life. My life there is 100% work 24 hours a week. And I miss the simple fact of having a txakoli with my friends after a day’s work.

You could say that now the primates at the centre are like your family.

Yes, my relationship with them, as well as that of the rest of the carers at the centre, is very close, as they recognise in us the figure that has saved them and given them a second chance. The carers say that they are their family, and we feel that way.

The truth is that we have a great kinship with non-human primates. Is there a greater capacity to empathise with them than with other animals?

They are our closest relatives and we share 98.7% of our DNA with them, and you can see that in the way we look at them. Looking at them is like looking in a mirror and that makes it much easier to empathise with them.

What do we learn from them?

We learn about our biological behaviours, the origin of many of our actions. They help us to understand many of our social behaviours, the way we socialise and even our politics, as Frans de Waal explains so well in his fascinating books. Their alliances and coalitions to secure power and exert influence over others. Also the bonds of friendship and reconciliations, although sometimes tinged with interests, that help to maintain group cohesion.

Poaching is one of the main problems of the endangered chimpanzees. How can it be combated?

It is a very complex issue with no obvious solution. In eastern DRC, moreover, several factors are added to the equation, such as the presence of armed groups in the forests, as well as miners, both of whom hunt for food. The solution would be to stabilise the country, allowing communities to develop economically in a sustainable way, with decent jobs. In my opinion, part of the solution is to guarantee schooling, especially for women, in order to avoid early pregnancies.

What role should the international community play?

The international community also has an important role to play here, as we are part of the factors influencing the country’s instability, with the aim of continuing to plunder the DRC’s natural resources without paying the price we should. The country’s forests are the second lung of the planet. It is in everyone’s interest to preserve its forests, but to do so the community must see the benefits of conservation.

How do you see the future of chimpanzees?

The truth is that chimpanzee conservation has worsened in recent years due to anthropogenic pressure on their habitats, deforestation and habitat fragmentation is isolating chimpanzee populations that are not genetically viable. We urgently need to protect the last remaining pockets of rainforest inhabited by our closest relatives; to lose them would be a major human failure. Today there are an estimated 200,000 chimpanzees left in the wild, up from around one million at the turn of the century. At this rate of extinction we may witness their disappearance in several of the countries where they currently live.

And what are your next goals in your professional life?

My goal is to continue doing my bit for the protection of chimpanzees in particular and wildlife in general. As a particular goal, I would love to be able to have the funds to be able to reintegrate chimpanzees that are fit into the wild.

Is there anything the rest of society can do?

Every day, we can all contribute to the conservation of species with our everyday gestures. In the case of the chimpanzee, for example, we should extend the life of our phones and recycle them as much as possible, as well as verify the origin of the wood we buy and always opt for zero-kilometre products. Of course, not contributing to the business of illegal species trafficking, which causes so much suffering. By not buying wild animals and helping to raise awareness of our environment. Something important in this sense is not to consume cute videos of wild animals on social networks, because behind every Instagrammer with a chimpanzee or a monkey in their networks there is brutal traffic of these animals.

Photo: Brent Stirton