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Mountain gorilla
photo: WWF-Canon / Martin HARVEY |
In 2002, the 100th anniversary year of the scientific discovery of the mountain gorilla, WWF launched a continent-wide African Great Apes Program. WWF continues to strive toward ensuring the long-term survival of these great apes through projects focusing on each of the gorilla subspecies and their habitats.
Western gorilla projects
Cameroon - The Boumba-Bek, Lac Lobeke and Nki forests of southeast Cameroon are some of the best-preserved forests in the Congo Basin. Their wealth of biodiversity includes forest elephants, western lowland gorillas, and chimpanzees.
WWF has been working in Korup National Park since 1982, completing population surveys of key species such as gorillas and elephants, as well as ensuring the protection and management of the park.
Surveys conducted by WWF confirmed the presence of Cross River gorillas in the Takamanda forests of western Cameroon. This subspecies of western gorilla is actively hunted and is threatened due to the lack of wildlife protection within the area. Efforts are being made by Nigerian park authorities to prevent poachers from Cameroon from crossing into the Okwango sector of the Cross River National Park in order to better protect this endangered subspecies.
Central African Republic - The Dzanga-Sangha Dense Forest Special Reserve and the Dzanga-Ndoki National Park are the country's last undisturbed lowland rainforests and are home to large populations of western lowland gorillas. The project is developing management policies for the national park and its buffer zone, and will serve as a pilot project integrating conservation and rural development in the region. WWF has funded a gorilla population survey in Dzanga-Sangha Reserve and is assisting in habituating several groups of gorillas, which are a key species in a strategy to develop ecotourism. WWF is also helping to set in place preventative health measures to protect gorillas from diseases carried by tourists.
Gabon - The Minkebe region in northeast Gabon is part of a forest block shared by Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. It is one of the few large intact forest blocks left in Africa and so far its wildlife has been relatively undisturbed by farming, logging and hunting pressures. A WWF project works toward establishing a core protected area and the sustainable conservation of wildlife throughout the entire forest.
WWF is also developing management plans and community development projects in the Gamba Protected Area Complex of southwest Gabon. This area includes a variety of habitats, including large area of lowland rainforest that are home to western lowland gorillas.
Nigeria - The gorillas of the Cross River state in southeast Nigeria and western Cameroon are classified as a separate subspecies, the Cross River gorilla. The Nigerian Conservation Foundation, a WWF affiliate, has undertaken a program aimed at improving protection of these gorillas and their habitat in the Cross River National Park, including the construction of a field station and enhanced ranger program. An education project aims to raise awareness of the benefits of protecting gorillas, focusing on the ecological value of forest conservation, income from ecotourism and the potential this has for economic development.
Eastern Gorilla Projects
Democratic Republic of Congo - The Virunga Environmental Program aims to raise awareness of the value of conservation among local communities based on rural development activities such as tree planting and establishing nurseries.
Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda - In 1991, WWF joined Flora and Fauna International and the African Wildlife Foundation in forming a coalition to protect mountain gorillas. The International Gorilla Conservation Program (IGCP) works with local communities, as well as park authorities, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda, making it the only organization working on mountain gorilla conservation in all three countries where the gorillas are found.
IGCP focuses on four strategic objectives: providing skills training and much needed equipment to field staff working on the ground in gorilla conservation; working to bring the three range states together in order to collaborate on natural resource management; forming strong links with local communities; and strengthening conservation policy. During periods of civil unrest and political instability in the region, IGCP has stepped in to pay park ranger salaries, purchased field equipment, and helped defuse landmines in the Virunga Mountains after the Rwandan civil war in the mid-1990s. IGCP also works to ensure that communities around parks with habituated mountain gorillas benefit from the money brought in from gorilla tourism.
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