Copyright 2001, Environmental News Network
October 26, 2001
By Stacy Fowler

Editor's Note: You have a chance to meet Dr. Amy Vedder in person on Tuesday, October 30, at the San Francisco Public Library: See details at the end of this article.

Dr. Amy Vedder is vice president at the Wildlife Conservation Society, which is based at the Bronx Zoo in New York. She also directs the living landscapes program there. She and her husband, Dr. Bill Weber, are coauthors of a new book, In the Kingdom of Gorillas: Fragile Species in a Dangerous Land, that details their experiences working to conserve endangered mountain gorillas in Rwanda.

The husband-and-wife team founded the Mountain Gorilla Project in 1979, which was a pioneering effort in the ecotourism movement. The couple also witnessed the civil war and genocide that ravaged Rwanda and its people in the 1990s. Below is the first of a three-part series from a conversation between Dr. Vedder and ENN's Stacey Fowler.

Stacey Fowler: What inspired you and your husband to write the book?

Amy Vedder: My husband and I worked in the field on gorilla research and then conservation for a number of years starting more than 20 years ago. And so much happened during that period and since then that, reflecting back on it, we realized the story still hasn't been told, that it's fascinating, it's evolved over time, and the nation of Rwanda has gone through war and attracted the attention of the world. And, things have happened even since then that give us a lot of hope. So for all those reasons, we thought it was an important time to put some of those reflections together and let the public know of that fascinating story, the change that has taken place, and in particular, the current situation that we think people are very interested to hear of.

SF: Could you elaborate a little for our readers who might be unaware of the scope and gravity of the civil war that took place in Rwanda?

AV: I think Americans in general know very little about Africa. When it comes to Rwanda, if they had heard of Rwanda before the war, it would have been because of gorillas and the work of Dian Fossey, who was based there. So if there was a connection made between Americans and Rwanda earlier it was because of these outstanding animals.

In 1994 there was a cataclysmic war that included massive genocide, so some Americans have heard of the country more recently because of that event. In a 100-day period about 800,000 people were killed, and it was truly genocidal in that it was almost entirely one ethnic group that was being killed off because of their ethnicity. In the meantime, a new government had been trying to get its feet on the ground and bring justice and particularly peace to the country.

The fascinating story that's woven all through all of that period is how have gorillas — this very glamorous, world-renowned subspecies — done in the midst of all of this tremendous turmoil and death. Being able to tell that conservation story has been a real pleasure for us.SF: How did gorillas fare during the course of the civil unrest in Rwanda?

AV: Mountain gorillas are part of a subspecies that is very, very low in number to begin with. When the first studies of them in that area were done, George Schaller, back in 1959 estimated 400 to 500 gorillas total. In the meantime, the population went down to about 250, and then it's been inching its way back up. So just before the war broke out we were seeing a significant upturn in the population to about 320 animals.

And then war broke out. Many people assumed that the gorillas were probably largely wiped out or at least horribly impacted by the death around them. In fact, the most recent figures show that the population continued to increase and is at a minimum of about 355 now. So it's tremendously heartening news that this has happened despite the horrors of war in the meantime.

SF: What do you think contributed to the sparing of mountain gorillas during the war?

AV: Mountain gorillas became a very well known international commodity of sorts. The work that my husband Bill Weber and I had done early on in Rwanda included helping to set up a tourism program that brought people from across the world to see mountain gorillas on their own turf in their own forest on their own mountain behaving in their own natural way.

The tourism program in Rwanda provided a source of revenue for the country, especially a source of foreign exchange, which was extremely rare in Rwanda. That made a huge difference in their economy. Gorilla tourism became the third-ranked source of foreign exchange for the whole nation. So it was really significant to the government, to business people associated with tourism, and it employed a larger number of local people than had ever been employed by the national park in which they're found.

So all of those things meant that gorillas, if for no other reason than that they were an economic resource, became really important in Rwanda. When the beginnings of a war broke out in 1990 and during a four-year period of low-scale civil war between 1990 and 1994, the rebels coming in and invading the country and the existing government trying to defend itself both made international proclamations that they would not harm the park or the gorillas in it, even though they were fighting all around the park. All of that, I think, was because gorillas were seen as a way for the nation and its people to survive and generate revenue.

SF: You and your husband have been credited as being pioneers in the whole ecotourism movement. Do you think the success of the Mountain Gorilla Project has led to the development of similar programs in other areas where there are rare species?

AV: Yeah, a lot of conservationists and other field workers have commented to us that it has meant a lot to them in how they think and practice conservation. When we started this tourism program in 1979, there was no word "ecotourism." The concept wasn't out there. On the other hand, to us it seemed like a no-brainer.

We had been doing research with gorillas; they were so tremendously glamorous, wonderful to be around, and fascinating to observe. And what is truly remarkable about them is that if you slowly build their trust, they let you into their world; they allow you to sit with their family. And that's an extremely rare, unique experience with wildlife anywhere in the world.

So realizing that all that was possible, a real challenge was not to make this succeed and bring numbers of people over and make money. Rather, how would we and others following us ever control the number of people and the impact it might have on gorillas, prevent people from getting too close to them, and address all of those other things that would come with the success of tourism. I think these kinds of concerns about what can be negative impacts from tourism are things that many other conservation programs are experiencing as well today.

So the fact that it worked I think is significant for how others might do conservation, but also the fact that right from the beginning we were concerned about negative impacts and tried to plan for that is a really important lesson, as well, if people try to do conservation by promoting tourism.

SF: Are you and Dr. Weber still actively involved in The Mountain Gorilla Project?

AV: We're involved with mountain gorilla and other gorilla conservation in a number of different ways. No, we're not on the ground right now; we haven't been for a number of years. But one of the things that we feel extremely good about in terms of this book is we are donating a portion of our proceeds and the publisher is likewise donating a portion of the proceeds from the book itself to gorilla conservation and to improving the lives of people who live alongside gorillas. So in that way we're very directly involved now.

I've directed the Africa Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society for a number of years, and Bill did prior to that, so in our activities overseas we've been directing a number of programs that have to do directly with mountain gorilla conservation as well as the conservation of gorillas in other parts of the continent.

Dr. Amy Vedder will be speaking in the Koret Auditorium of the San Francisco Public Library on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2001, from 6 - 8 p.m. There is no charge for this event. For more information, contact Terry Gwiazdowski at (415) 557-4500. Error: Unable to read footer file.