Gorilla Poachers Beware!

A room full of officials is seldom something to get excited about, but this one was different. In a modest new hotel on a hill over-looking the rapidly expanding capital of Rwanda, Kigali, , the first meeting of the UNEP-CMS Gorilla Agreement Technical Committee was a great success on several levels. For a start, all ten of the gorilla range states wanted to be involved, although regrettably one delegate ran into logistical problems and didn’t make it; the fact that every government with naturally occurring gorilla populations is now engaged with this legally binding treaty is very encouraging. We anticipate 10 out of 10 ratifying the treaty before long.

Much of the discussion focussed on law enforcement....... Gorillas are protected by law in every country where they are found, but illegal hunting for speciality bushmeat, traditional African medicine and live infants remains a serious threat to most populations. With the head of Interpol’s Environmental Crime Unit and the Enforcement Officer of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in the room, in addition to several NGOs offering expert support to enforcement agencies, it was clear that governments in the region are now taking this issue more seriously. Across the Congo Basin, countries which until recently had seldom if ever seen a prosecution for wildlife crime are now bringing successful prosecutions against commercial poachers and illegal traders.

The bottom line in measuring conservation success is the number of animals. Are there the same number or more gorillas at the end of each year than at the beginning? Monitoring gorilla populations, however, is difficult and expensive. Monitoring enforcement activities is more straightforward, but still needs a system of collecting and analysing data. One encouraging outcome was a move to link existing elephant monitoring activities with gorilla monitoring. Elephants play such an important role in the ecology of gorilla habitat, that it makes ecological as well as economic sense to ensure both species survive. Apes may be known as the gardeners of the forests, because of their role in seed dispersal and their shaping of the forest, but a recent scientific paper coined the phrase for elephants as ‘mega-gardeners of the forest.

Rwanda was our congenial host for the meeting, and its exemplary gorilla conservation record in recent years speaks for itself. The mountain gorillas of Rwanda, DRC and Uganda are the only kind of gorilla known to be increasing in number – and the example being set by the Trans-boundary Conservation Agreement between the three countries is a model that we hope will benefit other trans-boundary gorilla populations. Seeing this high-level cooperation and interest between governments, IGOs and NGOs was, for me, uplifting. When I first arrived in Rwanda in 1976, to work with the late Dr Dian Fossey, officials showed little interest in the cold, wet Volcanoes National Park or the gorillas there-in. The park was seen as a drain on the country’s economy and no-one wanted to work there but a few eccentric foreigners doing research. Now, the Virunga trans-boundary protected area is a flagship conservation success story and the basis of a multi-million dollar tourism industry. Circumstances are different in each gorilla range state, but other parties to the Gorilla Agreement are looking closely to see which lessons might be applied to turn their declining gorilla populations around and bring similar benefits to their communities and national economies. If Dian Fossey could see how her legacy has grown, I think she would be amazed!

A few of the delegates were fortunate enough to meet the subjects of their deliberations, some visiting habituated Eastern Lowland Gorillas in Kahuzi-Biega National Park in the DRC and others climbing to more than 3,000m in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park to encounter the Susa Group. Their interviews can be found at www.Youtube.com/YoGAmbassador

Report by:
Ian Redmond OBE
Ambassador, UNEP Convention on Migratory Species
GRASP Envoy, UNEP/UNESCO Great Ape Survival Partnership
Chairman, Ape Alliance