CONGO: A Congolese botanist who stayed at his post to protect a nature reserve at the height of his country's bitter civil war has won one of the world's top environmental awards.
Corneille Ewango negotiated with gunmen to stop them shooting elephants and gorillas for meat, and even found time to discover new species of trees. Yesterday he was named one of the winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize worth $125,000.
"It's my contribution to advance science," he said. "Even if I die, I would be happy."
Mr Ewango was working at the Okapi Faunal Reserve in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo at the outbreak of war in the 1990s. The reserve is home to the endangered okapi, or forest giraffe, and has more species of large primate than any other African forest. He stayed on while his colleagues fled and was forced to hide for three months in the forest.
As well as protecting the 14 okapi in the reserve's zoo, Mr Ewango (41), continued logging data on thousands of trees. The reserve was made a World Heritage site in 1998 to protect it from mining but since then has been devastated by war.