40 Chances

by Howard G. Buffett

  But the second and more immediate problem is the drug trade. Long before my trip there, I already had a good idea how deeply the drug culture had penetrated Mexico. For one thing, I’d spent a number of years riding with the US Border Patrol in Arizona. I’d also traveled throughout Central America interviewing migrants on their way to el Norte. I did not realize, however, what a dramatic impact the drug cartels had on agriculture in the most remote regions. Investigating that was how I came to meet this remarkable Franciscan priest.

  Some try to escape poverty, hunger, and a lack of opportunity by going north to the United States. The “death train” is a dangerous way to reach the border. Photo: Howard G. Buffett

  Padre Beaumont was born in New York on Long Island and educated in the United States. As a young man, he joined the Capuchin Franciscan order of priests. But for the last twenty years, he has worked in the most remote areas of the Sierra Madre in central Mexico—in small mountain villages between the states of Sonora and Chihuahua, where tribes such as the Pima and the Maqui live. He speaks several dialects, and he often travels between these villages by mule—trips that can take six or seven hours. The indigenous people in these areas have always been poor by our standards. However, Padre Beaumont described what had traditionally been a rich culture of people living in concert with nature in a beautiful forested region. They have grown wheat and corn for centuries and are by nature peaceful.

  His diocese is centered in the town of Yecora but the population he serves is spread out over many, many miles. When he talks about Yecora, a happy, serene expression spreads across his face. He talks about the great love and faith his people have and their devotion to their children. But when he talks about what these people, mostly subsistence farmers, are up against these days, his expression darkens. An anthropologist who has been working with Padre Beaumont came with him on our visit and added, “The Pimas now feel they have no future. They say, ‘Our legends are lies.’ ”

  Drug gangs from the Sinaloa and Juárez cartels have overrun the region. The RAND Corporation says that Mexican drug cartels now export $1.5 to $2 billion worth of marijuana to the United States every year.1 Padre Beaumont described a hellish phenomenon he says has spread from village to village. Heavily armed drug dealers move into town and order local farmers to switch their crops to marijuana, replacing corn and wheat, promising that they’ll make more money. The farmers cooperate—what choice do they have?—but when the crop comes in, the drug dealers announce that they are going to pay in alcohol and guns instead of cash. The farmers are told that, with weapons, they can “protect” their crops better, and the alcohol serves to keep them depressed and submissive. If they object, the dealers may just shoot them on the spot. Occasionally the dealers shoot a local villager just as a reminder. He added, “Women are the heart of our community and our life, but so many women are growing up now with sexual, spiritual, and emotional abuse.”

  Padre Beaumont spoke of the lack of opportunity for the next generation of people living in the Sierra Madre, such as this young girl. Photo: Howard G. Buffett

  Some farmers just give up from the stress and despair. “A good friend of mine, a wonderful mother of four children, had her husband come home one night and shoot himself in front of the family,” Padre Beaumont told us. “That is the despair that is common now. I said to her, ‘How will you go on?’ She held her baby out to me. ‘I have to do it. I have to keep going for this baby, Padre.’ The people have such beautiful spirits; that’s what keeps me going.”

  He brought a series of photographs printed out on copy paper to show us some of the effects on the children. Kids wearing clothing and hats depicting drug paraphernalia; boys playing with the same trucks and Tonka-style toy vehicles I played with as a kid—except a common game is “drug runner.” The photos show a child grinning as he drives his toy with marijuana lashed to the truck bed just like the drug dealers he has come to idolize. “The police are the bad guys in these games, and the drug dealers are the heroes,” Beaumont explained.

  MORE CONSEQUENCES

  This community is struggling with so many challenges. In part, I tell this story to show that sometimes our resources and expertise do not match the needs of a given situation. For example, the Padre said that drug lords sometimes pay the farmers who grow marijuana for them with alcohol instead of money. Therefore, there is widespread alcoholism among the men of these villages and that is undermining their ability to put food on their families’ tables as well. The power of the drug cartels is so toxic in these regions, but rooting them out is a job well beyond the scope of philanthropy. The Padre also said that the local people were turning to harvesting trees to make charcoal to sell as an alternative to agriculture. That is a phenomenon we see in many impoverished rural communities around the world; there are a number of ways of trying to change that practice, but we could not recommend a course that would be well-suited to rural Mexico.

  But then he brought up a concern where we may be able to help. Padre Beaumont said that local farmers had drifted away from planting a diversity of crops. Corn yields were dropping in general, and many farmers were no longer even bothering to plant the traditional blue corn that has been a staple in the region for a very long time. He is trying to help and encourage them to stay with the indigenous crops.

  When we returned home, we began investigating whether any seed companies were working with improved varieties of native blue corn that might help the people of the region grow more food and improve their families’ livelihoods. So far, we have not been successful in finding these resources, but we hope to keep looking and do what we can. This issue is broader than one community—it applies globally. Many large agribusinesses have moved away from the kind of research that benefits small farmers, and I am concerned that this trend will hurt farmers who already face significant challenges to increasing their crop yields. If the only option to upgrade seed is jumping three steps ahead to expensive high-tech seeds, smallholder farmers will continue to struggle with few good options.

  I don’t know much at all about saints. When I was young, my mother gave me a small medallion of Saint Francis of Assisi, and, from what I’ve heard about that saint, this Franciscan priest is living the same kind of simple life, devoted to the people he is serving and trying to protect the environment. Padre Beaumont represents another face of hunger I have encountered many times in my travels—that of the quiet hero who refuses to give up on some of the poorest people in the world. These individuals work out of the spotlight against difficult odds with limited resources. And they are truly an inspiration.

  Story 18

  Gorillas Versus Guerrillas

  The gorilla ripped off my cotton surgical mask and then gently touched my face with his black, leathery finger. I was wearing the mask to avoid passing any human germs his way, but it can be dangerous to move quickly around a gorilla, so I had to stay put until he backed away. As I held my breath and grunted as deeply as I could to calm him, his sad eyes pored over me. Then he licked my chin. That was not even the most unusual experience I’d had that day.

  It has been a privilege to have had the opportunity to see the mountain gorillas in their habitat. Photo: Dan Cooper

  In mid-2012 I was in Virunga National Park, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or DRC. It is the continent of Africa’s oldest park and home to over half of all mountain gorillas, the most endangered mammals in the world with an estimated fewer than nine hundred remaining. I have been traveling to the region for fifteen years. The Congo is one of the poorest, most poverty-stricken areas of the planet. Meanwhile, Virunga is a fantastic, frightening, conflict-plagued, vibrant jungle. It is a refuge for the gentle mountain gorillas as well as for vicious paramilitary guerrillas who terrorize each other, local people in small villages, and sometimes the animals.

  It had been three years since I’d been to Virunga, but in May 2012 I was in neighboring Uganda and the Central African Republic (CAR), and we were able to arrange a plane and groun
d support to visit the park. I jumped at the chance. The man who runs Virunga, Emmanuel de Merode, I consider a true hero.

  Getting to Virunga is never easy. The park is located along the DRC’s eastern border with Uganda and Rwanda, two of many countries in the region with a complicated shared history. We flew over hillsides verdant and diverse, and we could see banana trees, coffee plants, and volcanoes in the distance and other signs of farming all around. Facilities are primitive. Our pilot had to execute a flyby when we arrived to make sure we had the correct landing strip, because we had been alerted that one was controlled by a rebel militia group that would have detained us with an unknown outcome.

  As we landed, a good-looking guy in a khaki uniform walked out to meet us: Emmanuel, and with him a team of his armed rangers. I could see his mood was not light. After some quick pleasantries, he gave us a sobering security update. Shelling between rebel groups had been intensifying. He pointed to the mountain ridges around us to show where and how close the conflict was, although he also assured us that he had sufficient intelligence contacts on the ground that we would have at least twenty-four hours to evacuate if things got too close to his headquarters and the lodge where we’d be staying. He smiled and said, “It’s not too late to turn around,” knowing that I was not about to do that.

  Emmanuel has a group of dedicated rangers to protect the park’s resources. Every day he lives with the statement, “No one will starve to save a tree.” Photo: Howard G. Buffett

  We piled into a truck with armed rangers in the back and in another truck following us as well. Emmanuel drove. As we headed up to his command center, we passed houses made of mud. Townspeople and barefoot children wearing tattered clothing waved and smiled. Baboons and monkeys crossed the street nonchalantly, like little town officials.

  Emmanuel is more like the governor of a small state than like a park warden. In addition to two hundred gorillas tucked away in the jungle region, he takes responsibility for an estimated one million poor people who live in several villages within and near the confines of the park. He has a security force, and when local conflicts displaced people in and around the borders of the park, he set up camps designed to shelter and feed several thousand people, sometimes while under military-type assault.

  If that wasn’t enough to keep him busy, one of the most impressive things about Emmanuel is that he always focuses on larger dreams of peace and prosperity for the local people. He believes that development is the key to protecting the environment as well. He has overseen the start-up of several local businesses designed to improve the lives of the people and create a self-sustaining path out of poverty. And he is pursuing a grand dream of turning the park into a world-class tourist destination. Talking about that subject tends to lift the serious furrows off his forehead and inspires the great investment of energy he makes in Virunga.

  “It’s a clean industry, a new industry. It creates jobs,” he said intently. “Just look at what happened in Rwanda with gorilla tourism. They created 120,000 jobs and a $430 million industry. There is no reason we can’t achieve the same over the next ten years. It’s ambitious but achievable. There is no reason Virunga can’t become a billion-dollar business. We’ll have a new generation of Congolese, highly skilled, who will be the driving force behind peace and development. We will have setbacks, but we will keep progressing. This will also give us opportunities to develop local businesses such as hydroelectricity, creating tens of thousands of jobs. Our hope is to be the biggest employer in eastern Congo.”

  FRAGILE SAFETY

  In some ways, our stories run parallel. Emmanuel began his career as a conservationist. He was born in Kenya, was educated in the United Kingdom, and always knew he wanted to work in conservation. He moved to Gabon in 1999. That’s where he first started to work with gorillas. While in Gabon, he made plans to come to Virunga, “the most amazing site for a conservationist.” There were no positions available, but he was determined. He resigned from his position in Gabon, bought a motorbike in Uganda, and drove it to Virunga, where he met the then warden and offered his services.

  At the time, Virunga’s rangers were untrained, undisciplined, and not even paid consistently. The gorillas were surviving on their own, despite constant threats from villagers, poachers, and militia encroaching on their turf. Emmanuel and his colleagues had a difficult time raising money to support what the park needed, but, ironically, they got their first grant from the US Fish and Wildlife Service and began building a network from there. He started working on the European Union for larger grants to rebuild the park, and the first came in 2005. But the world’s attention turned to Virunga in 2007 when a number of gorillas were slaughtered in the park by illegal charcoal traders who resented the growing tourist business interfering with their activities.

  The fragile safety of the gorillas hit the front pages.1 In 2008 Emmanuel became park director, and that same year, Virunga was awarded a large grant from the EU to support his rebuilding plan. His immediate priorities were to cull and retrain staff, but then another conflict broke out, and the park was at the center of significant activity. The rangers themselves were attacked at their base of operations in the village of Rumangabo and forced to evacuate the families of staff. During the violent outbreaks, Emmanuel was two hours away in the city of Goma, working on camps for people displaced as a result of the conflict. Then there was a second attack, and all of his rangers were forced to retreat into the forest for ten days and make their way on foot to Goma.

  During this period, the leader of one group battling the Congolese army, the National Congress for the Defense of the Congolese People, or CNDP, announced that he was going to create a new parks system. Emmanuel was overseeing three thousand people in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and knew this would be devastating for the people and the park alike. So he went to the minister of the environment, who in turn appealed to the president of the DRC Joseph Kabila and got an exemption to operate outside the political fray and negotiate directly with the rebels and allow his parks people to come back and control Virunga. Eventually a larger peace accord was signed in 2009.

  Since that time, Emmanuel has rebuilt the park and fought corruption. He had to arrest some of his own rangers who were involved in the gorilla killings, and that act helped set a new tone. He focused on institutional reform and on streamlining his rangers force.

  The animals brought Emmanuel to Virunga, but he has embraced raising the quality of life for the local people as essential to his mission. Building the tourism industry brought new jobs and revenues that helped him build nine schools. He has transformed a charcoal problem (many acres of Virunga have been illegally deforested by charcoal collection) into an opportunity by importing equipment to compress charcoal dust left over from past activities into briquettes that can be sold. “You can’t disassociate economic development from security in a situation like this,” Emmanuel said.

  We went to the new lodge that is the center of Emmanuel’s vision of tourism for this region. It opened in 2008, and by 2011, it had hosted 3,300 tourists and generated nearly $1 million in profits. Visitors enjoy guided hikes through the diverse, lush rain forest and are able to come close to gorillas who have been habituated to the presence of humans. (Tourists do not have physical contact with the gorillas. Emmanuel asked me to appear in a video about why I have supported Virunga, which we shot in an enclosure not open to the public, where the staff has been raising some orphaned juvenile gorillas.) The lodge facility was terrific, and bookings had been growing. The food was outstanding: French press coffee, homemade bread and soups, steaks, and chocolate desserts as fancy as you’ll see in high-end restaurants around the world. Best of all, 70 percent of what the lodge earns from tourism goes back to the national parks system, while 30 percent is returned to the local community for things like the schools they have built and water projects.

  However, during our visit, there were no revenues. Emmanuel recently shut down tourism because renewed conflict mad
e it too dangerous to risk having guests. As we sat with him and discussed the dilemmas he faced, the seriousness of the situation began to sink in. On the one hand, we were laughing at the idea that when the resort is open, it employs a full-time baboon chaser to keep the area’s thirty to forty baboons from pestering guests. And yet the faint booms in the distance were actual skirmishes between rebel groups, endangering both human and gorilla lives in the eastern region of the park. Emmanuel has had to dip into cash reserves to keep the staff personnel employed and divert them to other projects.

  The complex currents of this area, called the Great Lakes region of Africa, are hard to exaggerate. I lost track as Emmanuel recounted the different factions and Congolese forces that have made life difficult and dangerous for the local people and for his rangers—and that was just in the DRC alone. I was impressed with Emmanuel’s calm, diplomatic way of assessing situations and never losing sight of his primary goal: protecting and benefiting local people and the park.

  CHAOS DEMANDS COOL HEADS

  He showed exactly that capacity just a few months after our visit. In November 2012 a faction of the original CNDP group, now called M23, took Goma by force. When the city lost power in the aftermath of the fighting, a million people living there instantly lost access to clean water. When a crisis like this erupts in a conflict region, it can be pure chaos. The government is preoccupied with military operations. Large numbers of people flee their homes and descend on cities or areas already struggling. Local officials may have no resources or authority to intervene effectively. There were probably seventy NGOs operating in the region, but each organization has its own mandates and focuses first on protecting its own staff. When the spigots ran dry and people began drawing unfiltered water straight from Lake Kivu, Emmanuel realized that Goma could experience a rerun of a 2008 cholera epidemic that killed thousands of people the last time the power went out.