Source:
https://scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3035855/how-community-approach-gorilla-conservation-benefits-apes
Lifestyle/ Travel & Leisure

How a community approach to gorilla conservation benefits apes and humans in Rwanda

  • The central African country’s endangered mountain gorillas have been given a lifeline with an ‘extreme conservation’ project in Volcanoes National Park
  • Every gorilla is monitored and 10 per cent of income from tourism is channelled to nearby villages, preventing destruction of the rainforest for crops
Segasira, a silverback gorilla, in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda. Photo: AP/Felipe Dana

Deep in the rainforest of Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda, a 23-year-old female gorilla named Kurudi feeds on wild celery.She bends the green stalks and, with long careful fingers, peels off the exterior skin to expose the succulent centre.

Biologist Jean Paul Hirwa notes her meal on his tablet computer as he peers out from behind a nearby stand of stinging nettles.

The large adult male sitting next to Kurudi, known as a silverback, looks at him quizzically. Hirwa makes a low hum – “ahh-mmm” – imitating the gorillas’ usual sound of reassurance. “I’m here,” Hirwa is trying to say. “It’s OK. No reason to worry.”

Hirwa and the two great apes are all part of the world’s longest-running gorilla study – a project begun in 1967 by famed American primatologist Dian Fossey.

Primatologist Dian Fossey plays with a baby gorilla in Rwanda. Photo: Alamy
Primatologist Dian Fossey plays with a baby gorilla in Rwanda. Photo: Alamy

Yet Fossey herself, who died in 1985, would probably be surprised that any mountain gorillas are left to study. Alarmed by rising rates of poaching and deforestation in central Africa, she predicted the species could go extinct by 2000.

Instead, a concerted and sustained conservation campaign has averted the worst and given a second chance to these great apes, which share about 98 per cent of human DNA.

A silverback mountain gorilla named Pato sits in the Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda. Photo: AP/Felipe Dana
A silverback mountain gorilla named Pato sits in the Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda. Photo: AP/Felipe Dana

Last autumn, the Swiss-based International Union for Conservation of Nature changed the status of mountain gorillas from “critically endangered” to “endangered,” an improved if still fragile designation, reflecting new survey data.

It wouldn’t have happened without an intervention some biologists call “extreme conservation,” which has entailed monitoring every single gorilla in the rainforest, periodically giving them veterinary care – such as cleaning infected wounds – and funding forest protection by sending money into communities that might otherwise resent not being able to convert the woods into cropland.

“The gorillas are still here. We celebrate that as a victory,” Hirwa says.

Instead of disappearing, the number of mountain gorillas – a subspecies of eastern gorillas – has risen from 680 a decade ago to just over 1,000 today. Their population is split between two regions, including mist-covered defunct volcanoes within Congo, Uganda and Rwanda – one of Africa’s smallest and most densely populated countries.

A silverback mountain gorilla named Segasira lies under a tree in the Volcanoes National Park. Photo: AP/Felipe Dana
A silverback mountain gorilla named Segasira lies under a tree in the Volcanoes National Park. Photo: AP/Felipe Dana

“The population of mountain gorillas is still vulnerable,” says George Schaller, a renowned biologist and gorilla expert. “But their numbers are now growing, and that’s remarkable.”

Once depicted in legends and films like King Kong as fearsome beasts, gorillas are actually languid primates that eat only plants and insects, and live in fairly stable, extended family groups. Their strength and chest-thumping displays are generally reserved for contests between male rivals.

As Hirwa recently observed a gorilla family, he gingerly pulled back a stalk of stinging nettles for a better view. He watched as the silverback, a 19-year-old named Pato, walked on all fours toward a squirming infant gorilla, Macibiri. Pato sat beside her and ran his long fingers through her fur, grooming her, looking for insects or other things caught in her glossy black coat. He made a low hum.

Biologist Jean Paul Hirwa walks down a trail to observe mountain gorillas. Photo: AP/Felipe Dana
Biologist Jean Paul Hirwa walks down a trail to observe mountain gorillas. Photo: AP/Felipe Dana

“Not every silverback will do that: pay attention to the infants,” Hirwa says. “That shows his personality. Pato is one chill silverback.”

Hirwa noticed a fresh wound on Pato’s chest, a small red slash. Most likely, he surmised, Pato had been jousting with the family’s second silverback for control of the group.

Later, Hirwa informed the chief park warden and the staff at Gorillas Doctors, a non-governmental group whose veterinary surgeons work in the forest. The vets monitor wounds and signs of respiratory infections, but they intervene only sparingly.

Children watch a drone flying near the Volcanoes National Park. Photo: AP/Felipe Dana
Children watch a drone flying near the Volcanoes National Park. Photo: AP/Felipe Dana

When they do – for example, by darting a gorilla with antibiotics – they almost never remove the animals from the mountain, since reuniting gorillas can be difficult. A long absence can change the delicate social dynamic.

“Our hospital is the forest,” says Jean Bosco Noheli, a veterinary surgeon at Gorilla Doctors. When his team goes into the field for a gorilla emergency, they must carry everything they might need – including portable X-ray machines – in equipment bags weighing up to 45kg.

Schaller conducted the first detailed studies of mountain gorillas in the 1950s and early ’60s, in what was then the Belgian Congo. He also was the first to discover that wild gorillas could, over time, become comfortable with periodic human presence, a boon to researchers and, later, tourists. Today, highly regulated tour groups hike in the Rwandan rainforest to watch gorillas.

Ten per cent of the income of Volcanoes National Park is given to surrounding villages such as Kinigi (above). Photo: AP/Felipe Dana
Ten per cent of the income of Volcanoes National Park is given to surrounding villages such as Kinigi (above). Photo: AP/Felipe Dana

Within Volcanoes National Park, tour groups are limited to eight people, with only an hour spent observing gorillas.

You can’t carry food or even water bottles near the animals, lest a curious silverback snatch them and perhaps be exposed to your germs. Don’t hold eye contact for too long. And if a gorilla acts aggressively – which is rare – look down, bend your knee and show you acknowledge its authority. Hirwa calls this the “submissive pose”.

The number of tourists per day is limited, and the price is steep: US$1,500 per visit. Ticket revenue pays for operating costs and outstrips what might have been made from converting the rainforest to potato farms and cattle pastures. About 40 per cent of the forest already had been cleared for agriculture by the early 1970s.

Gorilla trackers Emmanuel Bizagwira (left) and Safari Gabriel search for members of the Agasha group. These gorilla trackers help scientists, tour guides and veterinary surgeons find gorillas quickly. Photo: AP/Felipe Dana
Gorilla trackers Emmanuel Bizagwira (left) and Safari Gabriel search for members of the Agasha group. These gorilla trackers help scientists, tour guides and veterinary surgeons find gorillas quickly. Photo: AP/Felipe Dana

“With tourism, the tension is always not to overexploit,” says Dirck Byler, great ape conservation director at the non-profit Global Wildlife Conservation, which is not involved in the Rwanda gorilla project. “But in Rwanda, so far they’re careful, and it’s working.”

The idea of using tourism to help fund conservation was contentious when conservationists Bill Weber and Amy Vedder first proposed it while living in Rwanda during the 1970s and ’80s. Fossey herself was sceptical, but the pair persisted.

“The wonder of the gorillas’ lives, their curiosity, their social interactions – we felt that’s something that could be accessible to others, through careful tourism,” Vedder says. Figuring out the balance of how many people could visit the forest, and for how long, was a delicate process of trial and error, Weber says.

The population of mountain gorillas is still vulnerable. But their numbers are now growing, and that’s remarkable George Schaller, biologist and gorilla expert

The pair, who are married and currently professors at Yale University, had another idea, equally radical when it was first proposed – some of the money raised must benefit local communities.

“Back then, the field of conservation was dominated by the ‘fortress model’: You draw a line, build a wall, hire guards and keep local people out,” Weber says. “But it wasn’t really working to stop poaching. There needs to be a real incentive for local people to care about conservation.”

In 2005, the government adopted a model to steer 5 per cent of tourism revenue from Volcanoes National Park to build infrastructure in surrounding villages, including schools and health clinics. Two years ago, the share was raised to 10 per cent.

To date, about US$2 million has gone into funding village projects, chief park warden Prosper Uwingeli says. “Every year, we meet with the communities,” he adds. “We have to give back.”

Farmers work on their land near the Volcanoes National Park. The money they receive from the park means they don’t need to clear more land for crops, or poach the gorillas for bush meat. Photo: AP/Felipe Dana
Farmers work on their land near the Volcanoes National Park. The money they receive from the park means they don’t need to clear more land for crops, or poach the gorillas for bush meat. Photo: AP/Felipe Dana

Before taking on the job of running what amounts to one of Rwanda’s most high-profile enterprises, Uwingeli studied gorilla behaviour as a research assistant at the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.

Sometimes he misses the quiet, patient work of a scientist. But his time in the field also helped shape his mission.

“We don’t want to protect the park with guns. We want to protect and conserve this park with people who understand why, and who take responsibility,” he says.

At Nyabitsinde Primary School, nearly every pupil has at least one relative working in the nearby park. Leontine Muhawenimana, who is 11, says her father also is a tracker, and she likes to hear his stories about gorillas.

Children attend class at the Nyabitsinde Primary School near the Volcanoes National Park. “The money that built this school comes from tourism,” says Fabien Uwimana, a French and English teacher. Photo: AP/Felipe Dana
Children attend class at the Nyabitsinde Primary School near the Volcanoes National Park. “The money that built this school comes from tourism,” says Fabien Uwimana, a French and English teacher. Photo: AP/Felipe Dana

The school has new classrooms with blackboards and wooden benches, and a colourful mural outside the bathroom reads “Washing hands prevents diseases.” But the school is still short on some basic supplies, like pencils.

“The money that built this school comes from tourism,” says Fabien Uwimana, a French and English teacher. “More children today can go to school.”

Sixty years after he first moved to central Africa to study gorillas as a wide-eyed 26-year-old with a notebook, the veteran biologist Schaller says conservation may need both a moral and an economic argument.

Schaller believes that people have no right to exterminate a species, but also that “you have to find some economic benefit for the people that border the park. You have to involve them somehow,” he says, “make them feel it’s their park, too.”