January 11th, 2008
Published by Ben Beck

The beautiful garden in the Gisozi Genocide Memorial and Education Center in Kigali.

Editor’s note: Today, Great Ape Trust of Iowa Director of Conservation Dr. Benjamin Beck continues his 10-part blog on his recent trip to Rwanda. Beck, along with Great Ape Trust Founder and Chairman Ted Townsend, Communications Director Al Setka and Peter Clay, a senior orangutan caretaker, were in Rwanda from Nov. 28-Dec. 6 to begin the process to establish the Rwanda National Conservation Project with Earthpark and the U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy, two other Iowa-based projects supported by Townsend.

After stopping to see Katie Fawcett, Director of the Karisoke Research Center, we returned to Kigali the afternoon of Nov. 30. We had 15 minutes to clean up for a ceremony honoring the most successful business entrepreneurs in east Africa. We were Rosette’s guests, and had the pleasure of hearing President Kagame address the guests. Yes, he did mention biodiversity.

On Saturday morning (Dec. 1), we prepared for a session of formal presentations with our hosts and representatives of many conservation organizations working in Rwanda. We hosted the event, and Al set up the conference with a projector for our PowerPoint presentations and all of the other 21st century conference amenities.

Rose Mukanomeje of the Rwandan Environmental Management Authority and Tony Mudakikwa, the veterinarian in charge of animal care in the parks system, addressed the audience of about 35 people on the state of conservation in Rwanda. Ted followed with a description of the missions of Great Ape Trust, and of Earthpark and the Center for Citizen Diplomacy, two other programs to which he dedicates his efforts.

I followed with a presentation of our work with golden lion tamarins in Brazil, hastily customized that morning to the situation we would be facing in Rwanda. I focused on management of fragmented primate populations, corridors and reforestation, land trusts and systems of land tenure, zoning and land use, community education, and ecosystem services. I made it clear that we were not planning to reintroduce zoo-born apes, even though one of The Trust’s major professional accomplishments of 2007 was to write a new set of guidelines on great ape reintroduction for IUCN (World Conservation Union).

We clearly are newcomers to the Rwandan conservation scene, and we anticipated (and got) some penetrating and skeptical questions. In the end, Ted’s charming sincerity and vision, our experience, and our transparency seemed to prevail, and offers of partnership emerged from the audience. We had productive lunchtime discussions with Amy Vedder, now working as a technical adviser to the Rwandan Ministry of the Environment on a UNDP protected areas biodiversity project, Glenn Bush, who works on socio-economic development and sustainable livelihood aspects of conservation efforts, and Mediatrice Bana, a program officer with the International Gorilla Conservation Programme.

Next: Ambitious goals in a severely compromised ecosystem