January 12th, 2008
Published by Ben Beck

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.

President Kagame had sent an invitation to meet with us on Saturday afternoon (Dec. 1), and we were asked to be available on short notice to accommodate his schedule. We spent the afternoon drafting our objectives, based on what we had seen and heard. What appear below are the objectives as refined over the following week, but they were already well-formed:

• Create a National Conservation Park in the Gishwati National Forest, defined as conservation of biodiversity (in this case principally of apes), in an extensively degraded landscape, densely populated with low-income small-scale agriculturalists.
• Restore ecosystem services in the form of improved water quality; reduced soil erosion and flooding; fewer landslides; and increased sequestration of carbon.
• Restore natural biodiversity, with special emphasis on chimpanzees as a keystone and flagship species.
• Generate income through ecotourism, investment opportunity, and local employment.

We also began work on an action plan for 2008, the specifics of which are still under discussion. But we had come a long way in the two months since the agreement was signed in New York.

The text message came: “At 18”, meaning the meeting was set for 6 p.m. President Kagame and Ted renewed their friendship and commitment, and we outlined the draft objectives and action plan. President Kagame is a soft-spoken man of few – but well-chosen – words. His response was, “That is attainable,” which our hosts later assured us was an enthusiastic presidential endorsement.

Next: Despite Gishwati deforestation, a small chimpanzee group remains