Journey to Virunga National Park

An encounter with mountain gorillas is profound and deservedly celebrated. When a silverback returns your gaze, the illusory barriers between us and the natural world that we have constructed in our modern-day minds come tumbling down.

Sitting among a family of 12 gorillas in Virunga National Park, I was powerfully reminded that I am also an animal, that I come from nature, that I am a tiny part of nature.

To me, gorillas could be the chosen messengers, sent by the rest of the Earth’s wild animals to guide us back into their world, the world we have left and have done so much to destroy. If this is the case, then I can’t think of a more appropriate messenger. Gorillas are astounding creatures, more closely related to humans than any other creature besides chimpanzees and bonobos.

They are, in many ways, a more admirable species than our own: mostly gentle (unless threatened), emotionally and mentally intelligent, protective of their family, and living in harmony with nature.

And yet there are no more than about 900 left in the wild. Why? One word: us. Gorillas epitomise the woes of the planet’s wilderness and wild animals.

Massive increases in human populations, concurrent and unsustainable demand for natural resources, and political instability, wars and exploitation by corrupt governments (both local and Western)…these have all combined to create an extinction vortex for wild animals. And gorillas in central Africa are being sucked down along with so many other species. Or are they?

Mountain gorillas are, in fact, one of the great conservation success stories – for now.

I quote Jonathan Kingdon in his excellent Guide to African Mammals:

“In central Africa more than 90% of Eastern Gorilla’s recent habitat is now fields and surviving populations live in lands that were, until recently, marginal for agriculture. The takeover of what remains has been delayed because of a dawning realisation that walking amongs wild gorillas is one of life’s greatest privileges and an experience for which people from all over the world will pay handsomely. Gorillas have morphed from terrible cartoons of sub-humanity into a living and noble expression of humanity’s roots in nature.

Peasants from one of the most brutal killing fields in history now enjoy a level of well-being and contact with the outside world that was almost unimaginable. They owe their new-found prosperity and access to education to dedicated naturalists and scientists who persevered, and sometimes died, to convince global audiences that allowing gorillas to go extinct would dishonour humanity.”

Thanks to dedicated conservationists and researchers, their demise is no longer assured.

I am in awe of the rangers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda who have given their lives to the protection of not only the mountain gorillas, but also the rest of the park’s natural wonders, as well as the local people, who have come to rely on the park for a sense of peace and stability.

People like Rodrigue Katembo and Andre Bauma are true heroes. Katembo was once a child soldier, who escaped a life of murder, put himself through university and is now warden in charge of protecting the volatile central section of Virunga National Park, where rebels are attacking rangers and locals. Bauma is the inspirational caretaker who looks after four gorilla orphans rescued from poachers. When the park was under attack from rebels, Bauma stayed to defend his gorilla family.

Katembo and Bauma are just two good people, along with the 600 odd other rangers of Virunga National Park, including the inspirational Emmanuel de Merode. (If you haven’t watched the documentary movie Virunga, then you should…its the best piece of impactful film making I have seen).

You can pay anywhere from US$200 (in DRC) to US$750 (in Rwanda) for a permit to spend just one hour with mountain gorillas in the wild. It’s probably the best contribution you can make to their survival, as all the money goes back into their conservation.

The money generated from tourism has been the biggest single reason that we still can enjoy the privilege of sharing the planet with these remarkable creatures.

There are two species of gorillas: Western and Eastern gorillas, separated by the immense Congo River and the tropical rainforests.

The Western gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) lives west of the Congo and Ubangi Rivers, in Republic of Congo (not the same as DRC!), Gabon, Central African Republic and Cameroon. There are two subspecies of Western gorilla (diehli and gorilla), and their range is mostly lowland tropical forest.

The Eastern gorilla (Gorilla beringei) lives in a far smaller range, in DRC, Rwanda and Uganda, in the mountains of Virunga and Bwindi Forest. There are two subspecies: mountain gorilla (beringei) and Grauer’s gorilla (graueri). Some biologists theorise that the Bwindi population could be a third subspecies.

Enjoy the photos and the captions.