This former child soldier now protects the country's wildlife (photos, video)

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– A former Congo child soldier is now an outstanding park ranger

– He has vowed to protect Virunga national forest and its endangered species

– This work earned him a well-respected environmental prize

A man who was brutalized and imprisoned at 14 to become a child soldier in the Democratic Republic of Congo, found a special mission in his life: wildlife protection.

More than 20 years after his terrible ordeal, Rodrigue Mugaruka Katembo works as a park ranger at Virunga national park, Africa’s oldest. This immense 3,000-square-mile park hosts about 25 percent of the world’s remaining mountain gorillas. There are only about 900 left around the planet.

Katembo is now an award-winning environmentalist.

There are also many volcanoes, forests and mountain glaciers inside Virunga, which spans across Congo, Uganda and Rwanda.

Katembo’s undercover work exposing the authorities’ corruption regarding oil exploration within the park earned him this year’s Goldman Environmental Prize.

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Virunga is home to the mountain gorilla, a critically endangered species.

He vows to continue protecting Congo’s wildlife and work for those responsbile of corrupt acts to be held responsible. “Even if I or others are not able to (make this happen),” Katembo said, “then the future generations will have this information and will do it.”

Conservationists say these hydrocarbon explorations could potentially harm the park’s habitat and

hence its critically endangered gorillas, elephants and lions.

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Katembo’s job is very dangerous. He has to fend off both rebels and poachers, in one of the most unstable regions of the planet.

Over recent decades, Militia groups have killed more than 160 of Katembo’s colleagues. “They really fought with their heart to protect the park,” he commented.

Being a Virunga park ranger is very dangerous.

Katembo was a soldier for eight years during Congo’s long armed conflict, but in 2003 he took the chance to “change professions”, when a peace treaty helped him get out. His lifelong love for wildlife made it easy to make his choice.

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