Gorilla

The equipment was checked over thoroughly by our resident Solar Sister

Hi, this is Tuver,

So, after months of planning, fundraising and worries, it’s finally happened. Our incredible Solar Sisters have brought electricity to their home villages!

If you’ve been following this remarkable story, then you’ll know that just a few weeks ago, we got a special delivery of high-tech equipment for the Solar Sisters – a special team of ladies who recently spent six months at the Barefoot College in India learning how to become solar power engineers. And you’ll also know that both myself and my colleagues had a stressful time taking delivery of the equipment and getting it released from the customs people here in Goma.

But was all this trouble worth it? You bet it was! The excitement that the arrival of the equipment into the village of Rusayo caused is something that I’ll never forget. Fortunately, as you can see from these pictures, our resident Solar Sister in this village kept a cool head and got to work almost right away, checking the components and getting the panels fitted to the selected homes.

Now, I know I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating; this will make a massive difference to many people’s lives. For example, now that they can switch on an electric light, children here in Rusayo will be able to study after it’s gone dark, and their parents will be able to work past dusk, too, giving them more opportunity to raise money. And let’s not forget that, since they’ll have a reliable source of power for the first time ever, the villagers here will be much less reliant on the resources of the neighbouring national park, which is great news for the gorillas living there!

So, here are a few more pictures I took on that special day in Rusayo village. I’ll be sure to keep you updated on the difference the electricity is making here…

The men of the village help unload the heavy solar power equipment from the trucks

And then the ladies get to work installing the solar panels!

Here's Langa, eating as usual! Isn't he magnificent?

Hi, this is Tuver,

Well, firstly, sorry to have left it so long since my last post! The good news is the reason for this is that the Gorilla Organization team here in Goma has been incredibly busy, working together with our amazing Solar Sisters to get solar equipment installed in the small, rural village of Rusayo. I will write a little more about this exciting development in the next couple of days.

For now, I just want to share this picture my friend Dominique, who works at the Kahuzi Biega National Park sent to me a few days ago. This is the silverback Langa. Isn’t he incredible? What’s even more exciting that just this one picture is the news that the Langa gorilla group has now been habituated. This means that, thanks to the patient work of rangers and trackers, they are now unfazed by humans. We hope that tourists will soon be able to visit them, with this helping raise some vital funds which can be used to protect gorillas, as well as other endangered species.

So, if you do visit Kahuzi Biega anytime soon, be sure to say hello to Dominque and, if you see him, say hello to Langa as well!

Crowds gathered to hear the aims of the Solar Sisters project to the village

Hi, this is Sam,

I’ve just got back from a trip Kagandu, one of the many small villages dotted along the border of the Mgahinga National Park here in Uganda. Here, along with my Gorilla Organization colleague Regina, I was exploring the possibility of getting the community involved in our Solar Sisters project, which is already on track to transform hundreds of lives in four different villages across the border in DR Congo.

Certainly, Kagandu meets the criteria for being considered for the project. The Barefoot College in India, where women are trained in solar engineering skills, requires communities to be without a reliable source of electricity and likely to be without one for the foreseeable future. Well, let me tell you that Kagandu definitely ticks this box! It’s a full hour’s walk from the nearest main road and none of the 380 houses here have ever been fully electrified.

But what Kagandu may lack in infrastructure, it more than makes up for in spirit! The village chairperson welcomed us with open arms and even said she felt her community had been blessed by God to have this opportunity to become electrified! After a brief introduction, we held a productive meeting with several leading members of the community, in which they put forward two women to become Solar Sisters. They also agreed to provide funds to pay the ladies to maintain the village’s solar equipment upon their return from India.

I can’t tell you how excited I am to see this project extended into Uganda. Having access to electricity is a basic human right, and so to know that this village will soon have what so many of us take for granted is truly a cause for celebration. What’s more, I’m optimistic about how this project will benefit the gorillas living in the Mgahinga National Park. For too long now, people living in villages such as Kagandu have been forced by poverty to enter the protected forests for food and other resources. By allowing them to work and study after it gets dark and even to set up their own small enterprises, solar power will help them pull themselves out of poverty and will mean they will no longer be so reliant on the precious gorilla habitat.

Here are a few more pictures I took from my recent trip. I promise to keep you informed of all the latest developments and, on behalf of everyone in Kagandu, I thank you for your wonderful support!

The report I made to assess how the village could benefit from solar power

The village nominates the ladies they feel should go to India...

...and then, we choose our next Solar Sisters!

Moyoni, one of the Solar Sisters, was delighted to receive her new equipment

Hi, this is Tuver,

As Henry explained last week, we’ve just taken delivery of the equipment our Solar Sisters need to bring power to their villages for the first time. As you can imagine, things are more than a little hectic here right now, but everybody is so excited, not least the ladies themselves who are itching to put the skills they learned over in India to good use.

As you can see from these latest pictures, news of our work is spreading across Africa. Over the past few days, I’ve spoken to the national and regional media about what this delivery will mean to some of the poorest villages in this part of Africa. As I explained to them, by having a reliable source of electricity, people will be able to work and study for longer, allowing them to earn more money that they can spend on food and education. It’s also very good news indeed for the gorillas living alongside these villages as they will be left in peace now that people will no longer have to enter the national park for food and fuel.

So, here are a few pictures from the past couple of days. Just look how excited the ladies are. As Henry said, we’ll do our best to keep you up to date with the project, and on behalf of us all and the ladies themselves, I’d like to thank you for your generous support, without which none of this would be possible…

Here's Moyoni again, checking out the equipment she will use to bring power to her home village

Here's Henry helping unload the solar power equipment from the lorry

News of the delivery travelled fast. Here I am talking to the reporters about the project!

Here I am welcoming the delivery of the equipment for our incredible Solar Sisters

Hi, this is Henry,

I am writing with some very happy news from here in Goma.

As you may recall, at the end of 2010, the Gorilla Organization sent five Congolese grandmothers over to the Barefoot College in India. Here, despite the fact that all but one of them is illiterate and none of them had ever set foot outside of their home villages before, they trained to become solar power engineers.

Well, now they are back home and about to get the equipment they need to bring electricity to their villages for the very first time! As you can see from the picture below, I personally went along to welcome the lorry carrying $100,000 worth of solar power technology to Goma.

Once it’s been released by customs, we’ll get to work distributing it to our ‘Solar Sisters’, and they will then get busy bringing renewable power to their home communities. By having a reliable source of electricity for the first time, people living in these tiny villages will be able to work and study for longer, easing the burden of poverty and meaning they will be steadily less reliant on the forests that they live alongside, thereby leaving giving the endangered gorillas here the space and peace they need to thrive. How’s that for a good start to 2012?

Of course, I’ll be sure to keep you updated as the Solar Sisters get to work, so watch this space!

The new equipment means the Solar Sisters will be able to put their skills to use

Lava is shooting hundreds of metres into the air right next to the gorillas' home

Hi, this is Tuver,

We’re used to volcanic eruptions in this part of DR Congo. After all, we live in the shadow of eight active volcanoes, seven of them situated within the borders of the Virunga National Park. As such, once it became apparent that the current eruption of Mount Nyamulagira wouldn’t lead to a repeat of 2002, when lava from neighbouring Nyiragongo flowed into Goma and destroyed thousands of homes as well as our old Resource Centre, people just got on with their lives.

Thankfully, just as we’re used to the volcanoes, so too are the gorillas. They’ve been hearing rumblings all their lives, so this latest eruption, even though it’s only happening around ten miles away from the closest groups, is not causing them much alarm.

In fact, the eruption could be good news for wildlife here. Tourists are flocking to this side of the National Park to get a good view of the lava. This means they’re spending money here, benefitting communities and enhancing DR Congo’s reputation as a tourist destination.

Here are a few photos I managed to take of Mount Nyiragongo over the past few days…

The power of the volcano really is something to behold

Gorillas are living just a few miles from where the lava is flowing, but they are safe

Gorillas are extremely shy, so researchers are count night nests to work out how many live here

Hi, this is Sam,

As some of you may know, a mountain gorilla census is currently being carried out in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest here in Uganda. The count will allow us to see how well the gorillas living in this national park are doing and, just as importantly, will help us see what more needs to be done to safeguard these remarkable creatures for generations to come.

Now, counting gorillas is no easy task and it’s certainly not simply a matter of asking them to fill in a form like you have with a human census! Not only is Bwindi vast, the vegetation here is also extremely dense. Meanwhile, the gorillas themselves are understandably wary of humans and so all but the few habituated groups living here will retreat into the forests if they hear people coming.

So, how do you count mountain gorillas? Well, the most important thing to realise is that the researchers are not actually on the lookout for gorillas as such. Rather, they look for the clues they leave behind as they roam through the dense forest. Thankfully, being heavy and walking on all-fours, gorillas leave an easily detectable trail of flattened vegetation for researchers to follow. Once they have found the spot where the group they are researching spent the night, the team will get to work. Firstly, they’ll count the number of night nests dotted around the site, with this allowing them to put a figure on group size – though it’s worth remembering an infant will share a nest with its mother up until the age of two. Alongside this, the team will also look out for any distinctive silver hairs that may have been left behind by an alpha male and then they will also measure and collect samples of the dung left behind by the group. This last but may seem a bit yucky, but it’s a great way of determining the sex and age of a group’s members. What’s more, taking some samples back for analysis in a laboratory should help us check for signs of parasites, bacteria and even the presence of human viruses among these wild gorillas.

As I’m sure you can appreciate, this is no overnight process. Instead, it will be several months before we know the results of this latest census. For now, all we can do is cross our fingers, hope for the best and carry on with our efforts to help both the gorillas and the communities living alongside their forest home.

I’ve just got back to Goma after going to Kampala to attend the Gorilla Organization’s annual strategy meeting. As always, it was great to catch up with my colleagues from other countries and talk about how our respective projects are helping transform communities and safeguard gorillas. It’s really inspiring to see everyone working towards a common goal and to see how your generous support is helping make a real difference in Uganda, Rwanda and DR Congo.

Joined by our director Jillian Miller, we began the meeting discussing what we have achieved over the past 12 months and it was clear from listening to my colleagues that our conservation and poverty reduction projects have continued to meet, and in some cases even exceed, their targets.

We also talked about our plans for the year ahead. We are hoping to implement more than 20 projects across the three countries in 2012, all of them geared towards helping both the gorillas and the people who live alongside their forest home. Activities supported will include beekeeping in Kisoro, Uganda, conservation radio programmes in Goma, DR Congo and agricultural training in Rwanda.

It’ll certainly be a busy, and hopefully a highly-productive, year! I look forward to keeping you updated with news on our work here in Africa and thank you for your ongoing support.

Members of the community at Nkwenda checking on this year's harvest

Hi, this is Tuver,

The indigenous Bambuti people of DR Congo are among the poorest communities living alongside the Virunga National Park, home to the critically endangered mountain gorilla. While in the past they lived as hunter-gatherers, relying on the gorilla habitat for food, fuel and shelter, the establishment of the national park left saw these communities evicted from the forests. They were left homeless, without land and lacking many of basic skills needed to grow their own crops.

As some of you may know, the Gorilla Organization has been working alongside the African Indigenous and Minority Peoples Organisation (AIMPO) to provide the Bambuti with their own give them the literacy and agricultural skills they need to integrate into mainstream society.

One such community to benefit from our work is the village of Nkwenda, which I recently paid a visit to. Here, as we celebrated the UN World Day of Indigenous People, I saw for myself the joy people get from being self-sufficient.

The village leader Satura took me on a tour of the 11 hectares the Bambuti work, showing me how they put their new skills to good use growing maize and cassava. August is harvest time here and the sight of the farmers bringing in their crops really lifted my spirits. In fact, Satura told me that, not only will there be enough maize to feed the members of the community, thereby addressing the issue of malnutrition, but that there will also be some surplus, meaning the Bambuti will be able to sells the crops and start pulling themselves out of poverty.

Here are a few pictures from my recent visit to Nkwenda…

A good harvest will help ease nutrition and poverty within the community

Surplus crops can be sold, generating a valuable source of income for the Bambuti

Radio head: Here I am picking up my broadcasting award

Hi, this is Tuver,

As many of you may know, as well as keeping you up to speed with the Gorilla Organization’s work on the frontline of gorilla conservation through this blog, I also produce and broadcast our own radio show – Cosmos, Our World.

First broadcast in 1999, this is a great way to communicate with people living across eastern DRC, as well as in neighbouring parts of Uganda and Rwanda, and to discuss issues relating to the environment and gorilla conservation in particular. This is a project I’m really passionate about and so you can imagine my delight when I found out that the show had been named as the best programme for education for 2010-2011 by the Kivu Business & Tours Agency. What’s more, I was named ‘Best Presenter’, which is quite an achievement given that there are more than a dozen stations broadcasting here in Goma right now!

This award shows just how well regarded our outreach work is. The judges recognised that we’re slowly but surely transforming the local attitude to conservation by demonstrating to people how, by protecting the gorillas and their habitat, they can also improve their own livelihoods. For example, in recent programmes I’ve talked to representatives of ICCN (the Congolese Wildlife Authority), who told listeners that 30% of the money raised through gorilla tourism permits get put back into communities, while we also broadcast from the Kwita Izina gorilla naming ceremony in Rwanda, illustrating just how valuable gorillas can be to a national economy.

Now we’ve just started broadcasting eight shows a month, on two different stations, so let’s hope more and more people living on the edge of the gorillas’ protected home come to realise that it’s in their best interest to protect their endangered cousins!

Here’s a few pictures of the radio show in action…

Telling communities about the benefits of gorilla tourism is something I have a passion for

Getting communities involved with the radio programme is key to its success

Here I am interviewing rangers working on the frontline of gorilla conservation