Last month a small group–four tourists and six rangers arranged to visit the mountain gorillas accompanied by Jose Kalpers, field director of the International Gorilla Conservation Project. “At the peak in 1990, we saw 200 tourists a week here,” he told us. “Today we’re down to three or four.” At dawn on a cloudless morning, we drove north through a lush landscape of terraced banana, cassava and bean fields. Despite the ceasefire, the atmosphere was tense. The highway was lined with roadblocks, manned by unsmiling government recruits with Kalashnikov automatic rifles. At the tiny village of Basogo, we reached the southwestern edge of the Pare National des Volcans-the only area of the park that remains in government control.
For an hour the rangers tracked the gorillas up 12,000 foot Mount Karisimbi. As we emerged from dense bamboo groves onto a sunlit meadow, ranger Mathias Kanyamusoro gestured across a ravine. “They are in there,” he said. The forest exploded in a cacophony of shrieks. Suddenly, we saw her: a half-ton big-bellied female gorilla sitting in a clearing, blithely ignoring us as she chomped on a bamboo shoot.
Kalpers emitted a series of low, throaty grunts, to signal that we were not enemies. We froze before 30 apes of all ages lolling around the hillside. Playful infants somersaulted toward us, beating on their chests in a caricature of male aggression. Umkome (Naughty One), the dominant silverback, lay on his back, snoring noisily. With their sloping heads, bridgeless black snouts and dense black fur, they were at once menacing and oddly beautiful. After 45 minutes, Umkome rose, grunted and ambled downhill, followed by all 29 members of his extended family.
The gorillas’ tranquil habitat belies the peril that surrounds them. Later that morning, we visited the park headquarters at Kinigi in the DMZ to assess the damage caused by the rebel advance. “We had a steady structure of guards and rangers patrolling the forests, but now they’ve fled,” said chief warden Shyirambere Canisius. So far, there has been only one war related gorilla death: Mrithi, a dominant silverback, who surprised soldiers marching through the forest. But the loss of even one ape can have devastating impact on the rest of the group. Unless a lasting peace comes to Rwanda, the country’s priceless resource is in danger of vanishing forever.
