I am really sorry to have to bring you some very bad news from the Virungas. Yesterday morning a vehicle belonging to the ICCN (the Congolese wildlife authority) was attacked. During the attack eight people were killed. Three of the victims were park rangers and five were members of the national army who were working with the rangers.

The car was traveling along the road between Mabenga and Rwindi through the middle of the park. It was deploying the men on board to help keep the road safe for local people as in recent weeks this area has been very insecure as a result of the presence of illegal armed groups. The early morning patrol car was attacked with a rocket-propelled grenade, the attackers fled the scene immediately on foot. We are not certain of who the perpetrators are or which rebel group they came from, however we do believe that they are from the FDLR Rwandan militia and the search continues to find the attackers.

This is the worst attack on ranger patrols in over a year. Our thoughts and sympathies go out to the families of these brave men who lost their lives.

I want to introduce you to Pili-Pili. He is truly one of the unsung heroes of gorilla conservation. If you ever have the opportunity to visit Kahuzi Biega National Park you will meet Pili-Pili at the Tshivanga station – the entrance to the park. It is here that Pili-Pili greets visitors and shares his knowledge with today’s rangers.

Pili-Pili worked alongside Kahuzi Biega National Park’s founder, the late Adrian Deschryver, in the 1960s and was the first ever ranger to habituate gorillas in the park. As you can imagine he knows everything about the park and has more experience with gorillas than anyone I know.

Pili-Pili is now too old to make the trek in to the forest to see the gorillas (he is not sure himself how old he is), but he is a fountain of knowledge. The chief warden at the park, Mr Radar Nishuli, calls him the living library of gorilla conservation as he knows so much about the gorillas and is happy to share his vast experience with anyone who has the time to talk to him.

Here is a photo of me with Pili-Pili!

Here is a photo of the pedal-powered cinema in action. The viewers take it in turns to pedal the bike, which generates enough energy to power the film!

Madeline Westwood, the director of the Great Apes Film initiative, who is partnering with the Gorilla Organization on this project, and Colin Tonks, the “wonder technician” and inventor of the cinema, came to Uganda from the UK to set this project running.

The first film showings were amazing – at one screening as many as 800 children came along to enjoy the Gorilla Organization’s film. And they were so excited – it was wonderful to see. The bike adds an extra element of audience participation to the screenings and children where queuing up to do some pedaling and power the film!

The children were amazed at what they saw. Some were so interested in the gorillas, and are now so desperate to protect them that they wanted us to make sure that their parents could watch the film too – I have no doubt that each and every one of them went home to tell their families about what they had seen. This is a huge step for gorilla conservation – the more local people who what to protect the gorillas, the more likely the gorillas are to survive long into the future.

As well as providing invaluable conservation education, the bikes provide an entirely clean source of power. No petrol is needed, no electricity is needed and as a result there is no negative environmental impact of showing these films.

Conservation education is now reaching remote communities, villages with no electricity and a whole host of others who have never before been able to see films or access this type of education – for this we are extremely proud.  In the three weeks that the project has been running 11,600 school children, 184 teachers, 110 soldiers and 46 park rangers, all living around the Ugandan gorilla habitats, have seen the films – wow!

Here is a photo of children transfixed by the film and the bike in motion!

Last week I joined the entire Gorilla Organization field team, and our director Jillian Miller, for the Gorilla Organization’s annual strategy meeting. Every year in October we get together to discuss the year that has just passed and to make plans for the following year. It is a great opportunity to share experiences with our colleagues from other countries, who are working with different gorilla populations, and we always come away with new ideas!

Here is a picture of us at the meeting. You can see Jillian, our director, to the right of the photo. Next to her is Aimee, who fundraises in our London office and did an amazing job of taking the minutes. At the end of the table is Emmanuel, our Rwandan Programme Manager,  Sam, our Ugandan Programme Manager and Henry, our Congolese Programme Manager.

We began the meeting by discussing the work that had taken place in 2010. The current economic climate has meant that it has not been the easiest of years but despite this we were all proud of what we have achieved. Our gorilla conservation work has continued, and all our African partners have completed their targets for the year with our support.

There are great plans for our projects for 2011, which will make a huge impact on the protection of the gorilla habitat and the gorillas’ long-term survival projects. 17 project partners hope to receive our support in 2011, as do the wildlife authorities of Rwanda, Uganda and DR Congo. For all these plans to materialise we need to raise over US$800,000 – it is going to be a busy year!!

Please do get in touch if you would like to find out more about the specific plans we have for 2011 or if you are able to support our work during the coming year.

Thank you!

Jillian met with the family who now live in the house and work as rangers in the Virungas to protect the same gorillas that Dian Fossey worked hard to protect in the 70’s. Jillian shared her memories of Dian and George with us all and for us it was so inspiring to hear first hand of the pioneers of gorilla conservation.

Schaller and Fossey were the first to demonstrate the deep compassion and social intelligence evident among gorillas, and how very closely their behavior parallels that of humans. The Gorilla Organization continues the conservation work they so bravely started from the little house in the Virungas.  Times have changed and approaches to conservation have changed with it, but we will always be inspired by the first gorilla conservationists.

Last week was not a happy week for Uganda Wildlife Authority staff. They mourned the death of Nkuhene – an adult female gorilla belonging to the Mishaya group, led by the silverback Mishaya.

Nkuhene’s sad death was the result of a fight between the silverback Mishaya, and his former group Nshongi. Both Mishaya and Nkuhene recently left the Nshongi group but the two groups still share the same range – near Rushaga to the south of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (BINP) and North of the Gorilla Organization’s office here in Kisoro.

We think that both the dominant Silverbacks were trying to win the affections of Nkuhene but sadly she got caught in the middle.

It was earlier this year that the Nshongi group divided into two. Park rangers say that that since the split they have witnessed a lot of fighting, and until one of the groups leave the home range, they expect the fighting will continue.

Nkuhene was buried by UWA officials last week at Mukajani in Bwindi National park.

May Nkuhene’s soul rest in internal peace.

The majority of our work is based in the communities living just outside the gorilla habitat. We work with local African NGOs and partners to help communities access all the resources they need outside of the national park. By giving communities access to fresh water, fuel and nutritious food, and helping them to lift themselves out of poverty we are able to relieve the national parks from human pressure and greatly reduce the damage caused to the gorilla habitat – one of the main threats to the gorillas’ long-term survival.

To support this work we run an education scheme that gets the communities involved with conservation and we also work with the wildlife authorities and a number of specialist teams of gorilla rangers. There is loads of information on our website www.gorillas.org so do have a look if you would like to find out more.

Introducing the GO team!

Henry Cirhuza

Henry is our Congolese programme manager and is based in Goma. He looks after projects over a large area in Eastern DR Congo spanning from Rutshuru on the edge of Virungas National Park to the communities in and around Kahuzi Biega National Park – home to one of the largest eastern lowland gorilla populations.

Emmanuel Bugingo

Emmanuel manages our Rwandan programme and runs our lively resource centre in Ruhengeri, on the edge of the Volcanoes National Park and Rwanda’s mountain gorilla habitat. The projects here range from water cisterns and organic farming to wildlife clubs in schools so there is always a lot going on!

Sam Nsingwire

Sam heads up the Ugandan programme and is based in Kisoro on the edge of Mgahinga National Park which is part of the Virungas Massive. The projects here are all tailored to this unique area and I am sure Sam will tell you more!

Tuver Wundi

Last but certainly not least is Tuver, who you will have met before on this blog. Tuver is the Gorilla Organization’s field communication manager and while he is based in Goma he travels throughout the region regularly, keeping on top of everything that is going on and collecting news for his weekly radio broadcast.

Right I will hand you over to the team, but do keep in touch, we would love to hear your comments!

Look at this beauty!

Thank you Innocent for bringing us this wonderful news. I know that things are still very difficult in eastern DR Congo but the gorillas look quite peaceful thanks to our former CEO Emmanuel de Merode who is now the Virunga National Park warden and his team of dedicated rangers on the ground.

As the regular reader of this blog will remember, Ian did numerous video interviews and collected other video material. Unfortunately, the files were too large to upload as he went, but we are now receiving them.

One of Ian’s first visits in the Dem. Rep. of Congo was to the Kahuzi Biega National Park, where he interviewed Head Ranger Radar Nishuli on the ever-volatile situation there and on what he thinks of the YoG. Enjoy!

These past few days since my last blog have been an extraordinary journey, not just geographically but between the extremes of human nature – great joy and inspiration contrasting with harrowing stories of our species’ ability to inflict great suffering.  Email access has been intermittent and time short, but let me bring you up to date day by day:

15^th – Lake Kivu is a beautiful lake, dotted with islands and dug-out canoes.  Crossing it on the deck of a high-speed ferry is a delightful experience on a fine day.   Inside, the passenger cabin has rows of comfortable seats on either side of a central aisle and a wide-screen TV which usually shows videos.  Unfortunately the DVD player had malfunctioned so we had to make our own entertainment (reviewing rushes with the Australian Network 7 crew).  This was a particular disappointment to me because the videos most often shown nowadays are documentaries provided by the Great Apes Film Initiative (http://www.gafi4apes.org) in association with the Gorilla Organization (GO).  

GAFI aims to rectify the iniquitous fact that films made about wildlife by TV companies in UK, Europe, America and Japan are unaffordable to most TV stations in the developing world where so many of those documentaries are made.  Thus, the average man, woman or child in the street in UK or USA knows more about gorillas than their counterparts in Africa.  GAFI has begun to rectify that by negotiating broadcast rights for films about great apes on TV stations in great ape range states.  And with the help of partner NGOs, also organises public screenings and provides a library of such films to education centres.  

The screenings on the Lake Kivu ferries have been a great success, educating all those able to afford the $50 fare (politicians, aid workers, businessmen and -women) about the importance of conserving Congo’s forest eco-systems.  As the steward served drinks and sandwiches, I asked if he had the GAFI films and he immediately opened the cupboard under the screen to show me the BBC’s award-winning three-part series on the Congo basin.  Shame the DVD player was broken today…

As we pulled up to the Goma jetty, I was met by Tuver Wundi, a journalist who works with GO;  we did a quick YoG interview with Captain Amisi about the GAFI films (sorry, video uploading not yet sorted, so plan B is to send DVDs to colleagues at the Convention on Migratory Species – thank you, Gentle Reader, for  your patience.  If that fails, I guess I’ll try tying them to the leg of a pigeon!!).   Tuver bounced me to the border on the back of his trail bike, negotiating volcanic rocks and the famous lava flow through the middle of the town, to meet Jillian Miller, GO CEO. She was waiting in line at the DRC border-post, crossing into Rwanda, after showing a BBC World team a GO project that had been nominated for an award (see http://www.gorillas.org/worldchallenge09 ). 

Before I crossed, however, I wanted to visit the GO Resource Centre and interview some Goma conservationists about the Year of the Gorilla.  I rang Pierre Peron, a former Ape Alliance volunteer now working for ICCN, the Congolese Wildlife Dept, and received some shocking news.  The previous day, a patrol of Virunga Park rangers had come across some hippo poachers near Lake Edward.   The poachers had opened fire and in the ensuing fire-fight, one ranger had been killed.  Without doubt, the rangers patrolling DRC parks are among the most courageous protectors of Nature on the planet.  Senior staff were understandably busy dealing with the aftermath and unavailable for a YoG interview, so I talked to my old friend Vital Katembo and the GO team instead, before crossing into Rwanda to meet up with the Australians again.

Read Ian’s previous post here.