Last month, Rwanda’s Development Board hosted an event called Kwita Izina, a traditional Rwandese naming ceremony for newborns. But there was something very un-traditional about the babies being celebrated. The country was honouring its gorilla population rather than its human one, the result of a success story that has seen numbers of the endangered species rising year on year.
On the 5th of September 2015, 30,000 people descended on the small Rwandan town of Kinigi, outside the country’s Volcanoes National Park. There were visitors from 26 different countries around the world, and even Rwanda’s controversial president, Paul Kagame, was in attendance. They had gathered for Kwita Izina, a ceremony where officials were to read out the names given to the mountain gorillas born in the park during the previous year. This year’s event was the biggest since the tradition was started in 2005, both in terms of the people attending and – more importantly – the number of gorillas born: 24 in the past year. So why did such a niche event attract such a huge crowd? The answer probably has a lot to do with the huge success of Rwanda’s unique gorilla conservation programme, and the powerful effects its has had on the county’s wildlife and local communities.
Ever since 1902 when European explorers first came across – and immediately captured – a mountain gorilla, the animals numbers’ have been dropping steadily. Under threat from poachers and the exposure to human disease, they have been driven into ever more remote highland regions of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. When American primatologist Dian Fossey established her research centre in Rwanda in the 1960s and began monitoring the gorilla population in the area, a 1973 census showed that numbers had dropped dramatically from 400 a few years before to only 250. The outlook looked bleak and it was expected that they would be extinct by the end of the century.
But today things look very different. Mountain gorilla populations are going up rather than down, making them the only primate species in the world whose numbers are actually increasing. But Rwanda has definitely seen the most impressive results: a 2010 census of gorillas showed the local annual growth rate to be a huge 26.3 percent.
So what has Rwanda been doing right?
The success of the Rwandan system is probably down to their implementation of a technique known as extreme conservation. This somewhat controversial method combines close tracking and daily monitoring of gorilla groups with a deliberate increase in intervention and human-animal interaction. Example: if trackers notice that an animal has been wounded by a hunter’s trap, for instance, a group like Gorilla Doctors will step in, sedate the animal and give it direct, hands-on veterinary care. While conservationists acknowledge that the ideal way to preserve the species would be eliminate human contact completely, they also acknowledge that that’s just not realistic in today’s world and the only viable option is to work out a sustainable way for us to live side-by-side.
Engaging with gorilla groups on a regular basis like this also allows them to become habituated – a process in which gorillas are made to feel comfortable in the process of humans, and more importantly, tourists. The park has a popular gorilla-tracking tourism programme, where rangers take groups to visit the animals in their natural habitat. Since the Rwandan genocide in the mid-1990s, Volcanoes National Park has seen a surge in visitors: tourism is big business, and the gorillas are a key part of that. In fact, 5% of the country’s gorilla tourism revenue (totalling more than 1.83 million dollars over the past nine years!) is channeled into local community projects, like supporting small businesses, and improving infrastructure by building roads and securing clean water and sanitation.
Rwanda’s gorilla naming celebration brings a lot of these different factors together: tourism opportunities, tracking and tradition too. The whole ceremony is a PR opportunity and highlights the benefit of local conservation efforts too. Giving their new gorillas names like “power”, “conviviality” and – featured in the video below – “wealth”, it’s clear that Rwandans don’t just see them as a valuable asset – more valuable than any hunting, poaching, or exploitation of the land where they live could ever be – but also a source of national pride.
