Dead planet, living planet

CASE STUDY #31

Transplanting and rehabilitating gorillas from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda – a success in avoiding disease transfer

ary Alliance (PASA), Tayna College for Conservation Biology (TCCB),Disney’s Animal Programs, the Disney Worldwide Conser- vation Fund, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the national parks authorities of DR Congo and Rwanda, has established the first permanent rescue and rehabilitation center for orphaned go- rillas in East Africa. The GRACE center is a project of the Fossey Fund’s Africa Programs, but coordinates activities within a wide variety of partnerships. A UNEP-INTERPOL report launched in March 2010 recommend- ed strengthened involvement of the UN peacekeeping forces in halting illegal exploitation of resources financing the militia war- fare and destroying gorilla habitats. On April 27th and on June 10th, 2010, MONUC, the UN peacekeeping forces in Eastern DRC, offered helicopter transport of a total of 10 orphaned go- rillas rescued from poachers in Rwanda and Congo. The gorillas were airlifted by a Mi-8 to GRACE, the Gorilla Rehabilitation and Conservation Education Centre located at Tayna, Kasugho, DRC. The GRACE centre is located next to some 222,000 acres of forest in the fully protected community-managed Tayna Nature Reserve. The land for GRACE was donated by TCCB and is only 10kms from the Tayna Reserve. Hopefully, in the future when the gorillas are old enough and the security in the region prevails, the gorillas will be released into the Tayna Nature Reserve. The reserve was estab- lished by local Congolese leaders through a partnership with the Fossey Fund as part of a corridor of such reserves between Maiko and Kahuzi-Biega National Parks with Conservation International as the landscape leader. Tayna was the first reserve to obtain of- ficial protected reserve status from the Congolese national gov- ernment. The GRACE centre will offer educational and economic resources to the people of the region, and will make a priority of training and hiring local people. Re-introduction, rehabilitation and subsequent restoration of wild populations can involve risks including the spreading of diseases and must be given careful attention. One of the reasons for the success of the Fossey Fund and Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Proj- ect (MGVP), who have managed over the past 7 years to save all

Grauer’s gorillas (Gorilla beringei graueri) are classified as “en- dangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Na- ture’s Red List, and, like mountain gorillas, are considered at high risk for extinction within several decades. A recent publica- tion by UNEP and INTERPOL, supported by a series of scientists highlighted that perhaps less than 5,000 Grauer’s gorillas may remain in the wild, down from over 17,000 in the mid 1990s, though challenged with scarcity of data in the conflict zone in Eastern DRC.  The gorillas are at great risk due to the conflict in Eastern DRC, illegal logging, mining and habitat destruction, as well as threats from diseases or direct killing by militias as a result of park rangers attempting to halt the illegal burning and cutting for charcoal in gorilla habitats (UNEP, 2010). The Gorilla Rehabilitation and Conservation Education (GRACE) center, Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International (the Fossey Fund), in partnership with the Pan African Sanctu-

84