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Ndeze is thriving – with Ndakasi – in the Senkwekwe Center

The Senkwekwe Center – the home of our two gorilla orphans Ndeze and Ndakasi – is almost complete. You will recall that we raised funds to finish the Senkwekwe Center to turn it from a 40mx40m facility, into a lush forest custom-built sanctuary of 1 hectare (2.5 acres).

This is the perimeter wall of the Senkwekwe Center, that is now complete and is being rendered both inside and out. An electric fence will run along the top of it – there is 400 meters of wall in total.

These are the builders rendering the wall. We have used the same bricks as those used for building the primary schools around the Gorilla Sector. We make the bricks on site which facilitates construction enormously.

This building sits at the top of the site and is one of the entrances into the Senkwekwe Center. There are 4 rooms: a veterinary intervention room, a veterinary office/lab, a storeroom and a room for the carers.

When you have entered through the building in the previous photo, you get to this, which is 4 cages. All the cages are joined and all will have water fountains. This facility is actually built for 4 adult Mountain Gorillas – and the idea is that Ndeze and Ndakasi, in the near future, have less human contact as they grow bigger.

Here I am just documenting all the construction, and the vast mounds of earth that have to be moved! The Senkwekwe Center is built on a very steep incline, so we need to make sure there is good drainage because of the heavy rains.

It really is a mammoth project – but as soon as the money hit the account we were ready to go, and the walls and building have gone up in under 2 months. This has been helped by 2 months of dry season, which is just coming to an end. We hope to have the facility fully functioning by the first week of October.

Thanks again to all of you who made this happen from a financial perspective. And thanks to the ongoing support of the Gorilla Doctors Jan and Eddy and Katie at DFGFI in making this all become a reality.

I will keep you posted!

The last ten years have been hard for Virunga, not least because the park has served as a refuge for many of the protagonists in our protracted regional war, and so has been besieged from all points of the compass by armed groups. In order to re-establish control of the area and provide security for its inhabitants the government established its own military presence in the park, deploying around 800 FARDC soldiers to various places across Virunga. Now, after a great deal of debate, the ICCN has convinced the military authorities that it’s time to leave: they are evacuating their troops - some of whom are very cooperative and others a little disgruntled - and re-deploying outside the park. This is a small but very significant step on Virunga’s road to recovery.

This occupation has been disastrous for Virunga. Rogue soldiers have been directly responsible for around 70% of the poaching during the period. And, having been tasked with protecting the local population, some of these soldiers could not resist or be prevented from abusing that responsibility by profiting from crime. As a result the park’s antelopes, buffaloes, elephants, hippos - and who knows what else – have been decimated. Even the fish stocks in Lake Edward have been badly depleted.

Thanks to the military authorities, the ICCN, the Field Team and, of course the Friends of the Park this operation has been successful. We have put all the human and material resources at our disposal - insufficient as they are - into making this work. With continued peace and security, our effort and your support, we can rebuild the Virunga National Park of old.

The Solitary Silverback Gorilla Mukunda had been ravaging the crops of local villagers living around Virunga’s Gorilla Sector for two months. We were starting to fear for his life, as his systematic crop-raiding destroyed the livelihoods of the local communities who depend upon their agricultural produce to survive.

The Rangers had to take action to get Mukunda - who had strayed over 5km from the forest in search of maize and bananas - back to the park.

Watch this video to see the daring intervention by Rangers and the Gorilla Doctors to re-locate Mukunda back to the forest. (The video starts with the HUGOs trying to chase Mukunda back to the park).

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It was an eventful day. The entire process, from start to finish, took about 5 hours, and involved anesthetizing Mukunda, carrying him to the road, transporting him by 4X4, and carrying him back up to his home in the forest.

The Gorilla Doctors succeeded in anesthetizing Mukunda (170 kilos/375 pounds) in extremely challenging circumstances. The Rangers coordinated the entire effort efficiently and effectively to ensure Mukunda’s safety.  And the sheer human strength of the men carrying Mukunda, on a bamboo stretcher, back to his natural home, was awe-inspiring.

Go here to Guard Mukunda.

Exactly 2,806 iGorilla applications have been sold to date. $2.80 of the $3.99 cost go directly to Virunga National Park - which means nearly $8,000 has been raised that will be spent on the protection of Mountain Gorillas and other wildlife in Africa’s oldest national park.

Go here to download the application

Thank you to all who have bought iGorilla - the first application for iPhone and iTouch dedicated to protecting Mountain Gorillas.

And you can also read a review by AppleiPhoneReview of the app here.

Help us protect Mountain Gorillas by downloading and using iGorilla or by Guarding a Gorilla. Thank you.

Gearing Up 4 Gorillas – one of Virunga’s key supporters – organized a charity gala this month to raise funds for and awareness of Virunga and its Mountain Gorillas.

G4G, chaired by Linda Nunn, has been a valuable supporter of Virunga for many years

Linda emailed me that “The first ‘Gala’ evening proved a resounding success with around 150 guests enjoying and joining in with the African drumming of Noah Messomo, dancing to the very exotic music of Congolese band Kasai Masai, with Mungo Jerry rounding off the evening  entertainment at around 1am.

Music and dancing – a la Congolese…!

Ian Redmond OBE gave a compelling after-dinner address on gorillas and their crucial role in keeping the tropical forests alive. Young Eddie Colwill received the ‘Fund Raiser of the Year Award 2009’ from Ian, which was a complete surprise to Eddie, who had raised over £1,200 from climbing Helvellyn with his dad.

Eddie receives his award from Ian Redmond OBE

Over $6,000 was raised on the night through amazing auction donations from US artist Daniel Taylor and sculptress Pippa Barrow. A sumptuous week in a Chamonix villa, a round of golf with Harry Rednapp and Rubens Barrichello’s racing cap also generated much interest. Many good contacts were made during the evening, with G4G working in partnership with the Murry Foundation and ICCN to help provide the educational and veterinary facilities needed at the Senkwekwe Centre.

Some of the auction items available on the night that helped raised critical funds for Virunga

Many thanks to everyone who volunteered their services, to Ian Redmond, the bands, the hotel staff and, most importantly, the guests who threw themselves into the African spirit of the event right from the start!”

On behalf of Virunga National Park’s Rangers I should like to extend our sincere thanks to Linda and all the G4G team for their unwavering support over the years, at all times. Many thanks.

About 250 elephants have just crossed the Ishasha river (in the east of the park) and entered Virunga from Uganda.  This, of course, is good news, but only to the extent that we can protect them.

Elephants in Virunga – a wonderful sight

These elephants come from Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda where elephant populations have thrived because the wildlife authorities have managed to control the poaching for almost two decades.  Curiously, back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the situation was reversed.  Congo (then Zaïre) was stable, and Uganda, under Idi Amin and Obote, was experiencing the kind of civil war that we have been living through recently. Their wildlife was decimated during that time. The old Rangers in Virunga explain how Ugandan elephants used to cross into Congo to escape the killing. The fact that we have parks next to each other across the borders makes it easier for us to re-establish the incredible herds of elephants, buffalo, antelopes and hippos that once lived in the plains.

Adults and babies come back en masse to grace our park

In the 1980s Virunga used to have about 3,000 elephants, but now we estimate that there are fewer than 400.  There are a few success stories, like Ishango, where the elephant number has estimated to have increased from 21 to about 150 over the past eight years, but on the whole, Virunga has suffered from very high levels of poaching, especially for elephants, whose meat and ivory fetch such a high price on the local and international markets.

That’s the main reason why we placed the training camp at Lulimbi, and one of the reasons why we’ve been running these operations on the lake: to secure a passage for the wildlife to re-establish itself in the Ishasha Valley and in the Rwindi plains.  We need to establish very effective wildlife protection by maintaining good surveillance through regular patrolling, establishing good observation posts and providing aerial support.  We also need to deploy well trained rangers very quickly to areas where the wildlife is at risk.

iGorilla - the first application dedicated to protecting Mountain Gorillas - is now available from iTunes!

Go here to learn more and DOWNLOAD.

Go to www.gorillaapp.com

Now the millions of iPhone and iTouch owners worldwide can download the app to follow the daily lives of the gorillas and stay up-to-date with the efforts of the Rangers to protect Mountain Gorillas and Virunga National Park. The app allows users to select a gorilla family, find out about their individual members and follow them through written reports and videos directly from Virunga National Park.

The app costs $3.99 to download from the iTunes App Store with 70 percent of the proceeds going directly to the field.

The app was developed - at zero cost to us - by I-SITE, a US-based company that designs websites and interactive media. Thank you to Ian, Jonathan and the rest of the team!

Let me know what you think of it!

One of Africa’s most active volcanoes, the Nyiragongo volcano situated in Virunga National Park some 25 kilometers north of the city of Goma, is now open to tourism.

This is the quasi-permanent lava lake in the crater of the Nyiragongo.

The volcano had been closed to tourism for security reasons, but has just re-opened following a notable improvement in security after months of Ranger operations in the foothills of the volcano.

This is the view you get from the summit, looking down into the crater.

The cost of hiking up is $200 for a foreigner and $25 for a national. Permits can be obtained from the Congolese Wildlife Authority (ICCN) office in Goma. Please email Vianney at tourism at gorilla dot cd for more information.

If you want to see some footage of the volcano erupting, and how it looks on most days from Bukima in the Gorilla Sector, click here.

In coming months we will also be providing facilities at the summit - shelter and toilets. At the moment this is lacking but it is something we wish to work on as soon as possible.

If you want to see more photos of the volcano there are many on our Flickr account!

Tourism in the Gorilla Sector of Virunga National Park officially started in May this year. This was a major breakthrough and a moment of great anticipation after over a year of fighting between the army and rebel factions had prevented myself and my Ranger colleagues from patrolling the sector and monitoring the gorillas.

Since May we have had over 500 visitors, of various nationalities including English, American, Australian, French and Belgian. It is so wonderful to be able to show off our gorillas again! Here are the actual numbers of tourists:

May – 5
June – 13
July – 144
August – 284
September – 60
October to date – 11

Each person pays $400, of which 30% goes entirely to the communities surrounding Virunga National Park, 20% is for conservation activities in Virunga National Park, and the remaining 50% goes to ICCN in Kinshasa to support the additional national parks and reserves in DR Congo that suffer from underfunding and a lack of resources. Included in the $400 fee is an ICCN security escort to Bukima (from Kibati) and to Jomba (from Bunangana).

So how many tourists can visit each family?
If a gorilla family has 10 individuals or more, we allow 6 tourists to visit.
If a gorilla family has less than 10 individuals we allow 4 tourists to visit the group.
And as you know – ALL VISITORS – meaning tourists, guides and rangers – wear a mask to protect the gorillas from our diseases and germs.

So at the moment we can welcome 30 tourists PER DAY.
The Mapuwa, Kabirizi and Humba families can have 6 visitors each day, for a duration of one hour, and the Lulengo, Rugendo and Munyaga families can have 4 visitors each day, for a duration of one hour.

And how do people pay for the visit?
It is very straight forward and transparent.
A deposit is made at the ICCN bank account in Goma, then you just come to our office to see Vianney who is in charge of Reservations and he will give you the permit. His number is +243 99 569 3627 or +243 99 171 5401.

If you have any questions at all please just leave a comment here – and as Head of Tourism I would welcome ideas on how to boost our visitor numbers. Tourism generates vital revenue for conservation in my country.

Yes, there is another newborn in the Kabirizi family. We never tire of hearing this wonderful news, especially when we think of the war that was enraging Virunga, the Rangers and the gorillas only a year ago.

Karibu gave birth late last month – this is baby number 3 for her. The newborn will join his or her siblings, Kitagenda and Serundori. She has only been an adult since 2002 – so we hope she has more babies in her yet!