The African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) has donated 27.8 hectares of land as the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) plans strategies in an effort to expand Rwanda’s gorilla habitant which is currently under pressure as the number of mountain gorillas keep growing.
The African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) is the largest pan-African international conservation organization with a mission to ensure protection of wildlife and natural resources in Africa.
As one of the founding members of the Mountain Gorilla Project the AWF in partnership with the International Gorilla Conservation Programme (IGCP) have managed and run a number of community-owed high-end ecotourism lodges including the Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge and have been key to promoting and marketing Rwanda as a prime destination for mountain gorilla tourism.
Today, volcanoes national park stands at 160 km composed of varying vegetation because of her large altitude difference in the park. The largest part of the forest comprises of bamboo forest, with montane forest on the lower slopes, covering about 30% of the park area, Hagenia-Hypericum forest in the southern part of the park
The rare mountain gorillas are the major inhabitants of the park with several other wildlife species including golden monkey, black-fronted duiker, bushbuck, spotted hyena, buffalo and forest elephants.
Originally the park comprised of 33,870 kilometers which was reduced to just 160 km; losing over 54% of the park land because of human encroachment on settlement and industrial farming, that today the gorillas can no longer fit on the 160 km land often seen roaming about people’s plantations and homes which is posing a huge threat for the survival of the rare endangered primates. According the RDB, the number of mountain gorillas as been seen to have a rapid increase looking at a period of 2003 to 2010, gorilla numbers has gone to 27%.
Officials and conservationists from RDB have confirmed a donation of 27.8 hectares of land to the Government of Rwanda as part of the expansion programme of Volcanoes National Park
The AWF operates in sixteen sub-saharan Africa countries and has been key to supporting mountain gorillas in Rwanda for close to four decades.
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