Photo credit: Will Whitford Kanyonyi, the Mubare group silverback, munching on his breakfast. Gorilla Conservation Coffee’s award-winning brand was named after this silverback.

 

by Sue Watt (Post Pandemic Travel Feature)

 

The world was a very different place when I wrote this article about mountain gorilla conservation for RoundTrip Foundation four years ago. It was a world before Covid-19, before lockdowns, mandatory mask-wearing and isolation, before the pandemic caused an estimated six million deaths worldwide.

No country remains untouched by Covid, whether through health-related, social, or economic consequences. With international travel banned, the tourism industry became one of its worst-hit casualties, affecting the livelihoods of millions of people globally.

Across the African continent and elsewhere, wildlife conservation felt the knock-on effects of that travel ban since it relied so heavily on funding from tourism. But for rare mountain gorillas, the risks to their survival weren’t just limited to a lack of financial support.

Sharing 98.4% of human DNA, gorillas were at risk of catching and possibly even dying from the life-threatening virus itself. They catch our viruses easily but have none of our defence mechanisms to fight them. Even the common cold that humans harbour can seriously impact on the health of an entire gorilla group, so imagine the consequences of highly contagious Covid.

 

How tourism saved mountain gorillas

Gorilla tourism has always been something of a double-edged sword, on the one hand offering valuable resources through selling tracking permits to see these majestic animals while on the other, increasing the risk of gorillas’ ill health precisely through that increased human contact.

 

 

When conservation efforts began in the 1970s, just 250 mountain gorillas survived, and they were only found in the rainforests of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Today, in Africa’s greatest conservation success story, mountain gorillas number over 1000 and have moved from the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) ‘critically endangered’ category to ‘endangered’. In the most recent census, in 2018, 604 mountain gorillas were found to be living in the towering Virunga Mountains Massif spanning Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park, Mgahinga National Park in southern Uganda and Virunga National Park in DRC. And 459 were thriving in western Uganda’s aptly named Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.

With an average lifespan of 35 years, mountain gorillas live in troops of up to thirty led by a dominant silverback, so called because of the broad band of silver hair across their shoulders and backs that denotes sexual maturity. Some groups, while still wild, have become gradually accustomed – or habituated – to human presence, meaning that tourists and researchers are able to track them safely.

Despite the inherent risks, funding for conservation achieved through tourism has proved fundamental to their survival as gorilla tracking opened up and increased over the years: there are now more than 40 habituated mountain gorilla families across the region. In the latest census, 73% of the gorillas in the Virunga massif and half of those in Bwindi were habituated for tourism or research. The others remain totally wild.

I’m extremely privileged through my work to have tracked mountain gorillas six times now, in both Uganda and Rwanda, and I treasure every memory – the thought of encountering these primates in their lush rainforest homelands still sends shivers down my spine. It’s something I will never be complacent about and is the reason I’ve followed their plight throughout the pandemic, having plenty of time on my hands to read conservation articles and watch myriad Zoom webinars on wildlife.

 

How Covid has impacted gorilla conservation

Gorilla tracking is carefully managed, with limits on the numbers of visitors allowed on treks, the distance to be kept between the people and the primates, and the amount of time permitted in the company of the gorillas. But Covid-19 brought a far more challenging dimension to protecting gorillas from transmissible diseases, hence these rules were enhanced.

It’s always been the case that anyone feeling unwell should simply not track the gorillas. Now, all visitors need a negative test for Covid-19. The new rules didn’t change the duration of time – that one precious hour

– that you spend with the gorillas, but the number of visitors were reduced to six tourists on each trek rather than eight. Sanitising boots before entering the park, strict hand hygiene and mask wearing became mandatory, and you had to keep a distance of 10 metres away from the primates rather than seven, with rangers and trackers being far more vigilant about enforcing this rule.

 

The new rules, and the drop in tourist numbers, bore remarkable results. This interesting article from the online conservation platform Mongabay explains how some respiratory illnesses in gorillas in fact declined once the Covid regulations were introduced despite the added risk from Covid itself, although lowland gorillas in zoos in the USA have been found to have contracted Covid, giving primatologists further cause for concern.  Now, government wildlife managers and staff from Gorilla Doctors, a team of specialist veterinarians dedicated to looking after these primates, are calling for the measures to remain in place after the pandemic has diminished.

Long before Covid, mandatory mask-wearing – already in place in DRC – was being discussed by the Ugandan and Rwandan wildlife authorities in an effort to reach a consistent policy. In 2017, I voluntarily donned a mask whilst tracking gorillas in Bwindi for this article in Explorer magazine and was rather surprised by comments from some fellow guests that it would detract from the experience. It didn’t. The only difference was that no one could see the beaming smile on my face, thrilled to be back in the company of gorillas once again.

 

Supporting people, protecting primates

So should we actually be tracking gorillas with all the risks of coronavirus for such an endangered species? Has Covid shifted the balance of this double-edged sword in favour of discouraging these extraordinary wildlife encounters, despite the funding they bring?

I’m no scientist or vet, but I do sincerely hope that as long as we prioritise the gorillas’ safety, by retaining the new rules if need be, we can still track our closest cousins in a way that ensures their survival.

Pandemic or no pandemic, conservation and the communities who live alongside wild animals are inextricably linked. In these gorilla homelands of Uganda and Rwanda, tourism is a vital earner and here, as elsewhere, people have been deeply impacted by Covid, with unemployment and poverty leading to an increase in illegal bushmeat poaching. One such incident led to the tragic death of Rafiki, a popular silverback in Bwindi, at the hands of local poachers.

This shows just how incumbent it is on us to travel sustainably. Anthony Ham’s excellent RoundTrip Foundation blog offers plenty of advice on how to do this, helping to improve the lives of local people.

To really make your trip have value, stay longer than the usual couple of days and spend your money locally. Take a porter when you’re tracking the gorillas; try hiking, cycling or birding with a local guide; or just amble around the main towns, taking in daily life. And there are plenty of projects we can support during our visits, including craft centres and cultural performances. One of my favourites is Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH) established by highly-respected Ugandan wildlife vet Dr Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka. Aside from research and monitoring of mountain gorillas, CTPH works with communities on health education and alternative income generation for women and former poachers through projects such as coffee harvesting.

For a real understanding of what it’s like living beside mountain gorillas, take a tour of CTPH’s Gorilla Health and Community Conservation Centre or a coffee safari with Gorilla Conservation Coffee – or simply buy the award-winning coffee. Track gorillas with Dr Gladys (at additional cost to the permit alone), learning about her work first-hand and stay in CTPH’s budget Gorilla Conservation Camp near Buhoma. All profits go towards the project.

Now more than ever, we need to ensure our journeys have a positive impact beyond the gorilla experience and, crucially, support the people as well as the primates of the rainforests.

 

For similar articles check out our series on Travel in a Post Pandemic World by Anthony Ham and Sue Watt.