Gorillas face extinction without tourism
Copyright 2001 TTHE DAILY TELEGRAPH (LONDON)
August 18, 2001
By Brian Unwin
Wildlife-rich forests in eastern central Africa will disappear unless tourism can be revived, conservationists and tour operators have warned.
The number of visitors to Uganda's Bwindi National Park has plummetted following the killings of a local ranger and eight tourists, including four Britons, by Rwandan Hutu rebels in March 1999. The park is the home to half the world's mountain gorillas.
Such is the perceived danger that last year 80 armed soldiers were assigned to escort just five people on a package tour to Parc Nacional des Volcans in Rwanda, organised by Cirencester-based Discovery Initiatives. Director Julian Matthews said: "That tragedy cost the country millions of dollars, shook the whole gorilla conservation programme, put hundreds of people out of jobs and nearly bankrupted the Uganda Wildlife Service."
Without tourists, Mr Matthews said, the gorillas would almost certainly have been wiped out. A tracking permit costing pounds 180 per tourist, in addition to park fees, had made saving gorillas an economic necessity for Rwanda and Uganda, he said.
Mr Matthews, who has a group bound for Uganda next month, said tourism was essential to protect the gorillas. "Just three gorilla groups - about 38 individuals - could generate more than pounds 2 million in revenue annually, making each individual worth nearly pounds 65,000 annually to Uganda," he said.
He added, however, that tourism should never be the only reason for maintaining wilderness areas.
A recent report by the Worldwide Fund for Nature, Conservation and Conflict in Uganda, said that while tourist revenue was being generated, local people and national governments had good reason to safeguard wildlife, but this could swiftly be overturned by political instability.
The WWF report said more than half the 240 gorillas that had been in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had been killed by soldiers or poachers, who sell the animals to the growing bushmeat trade. The report said: "This includes all four habituated groups killed probably by hungry villagers following withdrawal of park guards when war erupted locally in August 1998."
The Foreign Office advises against visiting Bwindi and Mgahinga National Park, also in Uganda, and any part of the border with DRC. It warns that rebel incursions into Uganda can occur at any time. As for Rwanda, the FO advises that, although most visits are trouble-free, "visitors to the border areas with DRC should be aware of the conflict there and the possibility of attacks in north-west Rwanda by insurgents based in DRC".
Due to recent attacks by DRC-based insurgents on local communities, the FO also advised against all holiday and other non-essential travel to north-west Rwanda's rural areas, including gorilla locations.
Hampshire-based Naturetrek cancelled this summer's intended tour of Uganda but is planning a
17-day package next year.
Exodus, based in south London, runs two-week packages that include visits to Kenya's Masai Mara and Ugandan parks, but no longer Bwindi. Instead, it opts for the safer Queen Elizabeth National Park's chimpanzee orphanage.
Crispin Jones, an Exodus spokesman, said: "You have to go along with FO advice - I don't think our insurer would cover us if we went against it."
Derek Moore, operations director for Explore Worldwide, said: "In this increasingly litigious world, you go against it at your peril."
But Praveen Moman, a spokesman for Volcanoes Safaris, which has the largest operation in Uganda, said companies needed to react quickly to changes in local situations. "Two and a half months ago the security situation changed significantly in the DRC and large numbers of refugees and others appeared in the area neighbouring the Virunga gorilla parks," he said.
"With three camps in the area and 50 staff, we had no choice but to suspend our activities. Now that the area is much calmer we have started taking people again."
Last month, the Uganda Tourist Board announced the reopening of Ruwenzori National Park, declaring it "perfectly safe" for visitors, but the FO still advises against visiting it.
Giles Mulholland, a Johannesburg-based conservationist who has recently toured Uganda and Rwanda, said the Ugandan authorities had become over-cautious. "They will close a national park for up to six months after the last security-related incident.
"I met several tourist groups with very unhappy clients who were not allowed to visit the gorillas by their tour companies - even though they had already paid for it."
He found that facilities in Rwanda were "excellent" during his five-week tour and added that he had "never experienced better or easier bird-watching.
"Yet the average number of visitors to this area is now one person per week."