Gorilla Journal...gorillas, among others). She also visited gorillas in Africa – the mountain gorillas and the Limbe orphanage. Carlos Schuler first worked as a typographer, then

Journal of Berggorilla & Regenwald Direkthilfe

News from theKahuzi-BiegaNational Park

ConservationThrough PublicHealth

The Problem withGorilla Mitochon-drial DNA Analysis

GorillaJournal

No. 28, June 2004

Ten Years ofGorilla Tourism inMgahinga

BERGGORILLA & REGENWALD DIREKTHILFE

2 Gorilla Journal 28, June 2004

CONTENTSDemocratic Republic of Congo 3News from Kahuzi-Biega 3CADAK at the InternationalWomen’s Day 4Logging to be Intensified in Congo 4Rwanda 5Virunga Gorilla Census 5Gorilla Permit Prices 5Uganda 6Ten Years of Gorilla Tourism inMgahinga 6News from Bwindi 9Conservation Through Public Health 9Appeal for Donations 11Gorillas 12The Gorillas of the Ebo Forest,Cameroon 12Networking Silverbacks? 14The Problem with Gorilla DNA 15Resolution of the EuropeanParliament 17Reading 18News from the Internet 19Berggorilla & RegenwaldDirekthilfe 20General Meeting 2020th Anniversary of the Berg-gorilla & Regenwald Direkthilfe 21Finances 22

out research on TB. Now, she foundedConservation Through Public Health.

Dr. Ursula Karlowski became in-volved in rain forest conservation in1988, especially in southwesternUganda. Currently she is working atthe University of Rostock. Her specialinterests are vegetation change andnature conservation strategies.

Kavugho Kisonia Desanges is re-sponsible for the administration andfinances of CADAK.

Dr. Angela Meder studied captivegorillas for 10 years. Today she worksas a book editor. Since 1992 she hasbeen part of the Board of Directors ofBerggorilla & Regenwald Direkthilfe.

Masika Meso is responsible foranimation within CADAK.

Dr. Bethan Morgan studied theecology of forest elephants in Gabon.Since 2002 she has held a post-doctoral fellowship from the CRESfield program in Cameroon, where shestudies the ecology of large mam-mals, particularly drills.

Denise Nierentz worked for oneyear in Vietnam at a primate stationand is now a zoo animal keeper (forgorillas, among others). She alsovisited gorillas in Africa – the mountaingorillas and the Limbe orphanage.

Carlos Schuler first worked as atypographer, then became a wind-surfing and skiing teacher. In 1983 hevisited Bukavu, two years later hereturned and since 1994 he has beenworking for the GTZ there.

Olaf Thalmann is a graduatestudent at the MPI in Leipzig, usinggenetic analysis of samples from wildgorillas to infer the population struc-ture and long-term demographic his-tory of this species.

Dr. Linda Vigilant works at theMPI for Evol. Anthropology, Leipzig,and runs a research laboratory inwhich tools of genetic analysis areapplied to questions of the repro-ductive strategies, kinship, dispersal,population histories of wild primates.

Authors of this IssueDr. Brenda Bradley did her dis-

sertation at Stony Brook University onthe molecular ecology of wild gorillasand is now a postdoc at the MaxPlanck Institute for Evolutionary An-thropology in Leipzig, Germany.

Rolf Brunner is one of the foundingmembers of Berggorilla & RegenwaldDirekthilfe and has been responsiblefor the organization's finances fromthe beginning. He is the chief account-ant for a medium-sized firm.

Prof. Diane Doran-Sheehy worksat SUNY at Stony Brook. She was thedirector of the Karisoke ResearchCenter (1989–1991), prior to estab-lishing the Mondika Research Centerfor the study of western gorillas.

Kerstin Hirschegger studied Afri-can studies and cultural anthropologyin Cologne. She became aware of themountain gorillas' situation when sheled tourists through Uganda.

Bernard Iyomi Iyatshi has workedfor nature conservation in the D. R.Congo for 22 years, in national parkssuch as Salonga, Maiko and Kahuzi-Biega. In 2002, he became PrincipalConservator of Kahuzi-Biega

Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusokastudied Veterinary Medicine and thenworked for UWA from 1996–2000.This involved setting up veterinary pro-grams for gorillas and other wildlife.After specialized training she carried

Organization Address:Berggorilla & Regenwald Direkthilfec/o Rolf BrunnerLerchenstr. 545473 Muelheim, GermanyFax +49-208-7671605E-mail [email protected]:http://www.berggorilla.orgThe latest Gorilla Journal is availablein PDF format at "Gorilla Journal"Bank Account:Account number 353 344 315Stadtsparkasse Muelheim, GermanyBank code number 362 500 00IBAN DE06 3625 0000 0353 3443 15SWIFT-BIC SPMHDE3E

Gorilla Journal 28, June 2004Editor: Angela MederAugustenstr. 122, 70197 Stuttgart,GermanyFax +49-711-6159919E-mail [email protected] and Proofreading: AnnDeVoy, Bettina and Andrew GrieserJohns, Colin GrovesDesign: Edwin Artho, Angela MederCover: Photos: Jane Dewar, A. Me-der, Chris Whittier, Carlos Schuler

D. R. CONGO


News from the Kahuzi-Biega National ParkMarch 2004: In spite of the instabilitythat continues to weaken the east ofthe country, the management of theKahuzi-Biega National Park has beenable to regain control of almost theentire park. Following the re-openingof the last patrol posts of Kalonge,Musenyi and Lemera, all in the highaltitude sector, our rangers have beenconstantly present in the sub-stationsof Nzovu and Itebero since February18, 2004. These sub-stations hadbeen abandoned when hostilitiesbroke out in October 1996.

Therefore, this is the first time in8 years that our staff has regainedcontrol over the entire area of theKahuzi-Biega National Park.

However, it has to be said that incertain small pockets, where insecu-rity is still predominant, the workwill essentially concentrate on publicawareness and development activitiesaround the park and will take thegreatest possible care. We hope verymuch that all forces will cooperatewith us.

Mining in the ParkAccording to first reports from our staffposted in the sub-stations of Nzovuand Itebero, 90 mines are still activeinside the park. They produce main-ly coltan, cassiterite and gold. Thisexcludes the site in the high-altitudepart of the park (on the border betweenthe Kahuzi-Biega National Park andthe Kalehe territory), which is underthe control of the "Bakobwa" militia.

In Itebero, 50 mines have beencounted, with 4,400 miners, and in theNzovu Sector, there are still 40 mineswith 3,600 secret miners. In total,there are more than 8,000 personsillegally digging for minerals in thepark at the moment. There is a strongdemand for cassiterite, and thisseems to have overtaken the demand

Park. There are 2 groups that can bevisited by tourists:

Mugaruka 2 individualsChimanuka 20 individuals

In addition, 5 families are under obser-vation:

Langa 6 individualsMpungwe 6 individualsBirindwa 9 individualsMufanzala 16 individualsGanywamulume 14 individuals

Total 73 gorillas

On January 6, 2004, an interactiontook place between Mugaruka andChimanuka, which ended in the trans-fer of the only female who had re-mained with Mugaruka; after that, thesilverback Mugaruka remained withonly one juvenile male. On December31, 2003, twins were born in theMufanzala group. In January, a babywas born into the Chimanuka family.

Bernard Iyomi Iyatshi andCarlos Schuler

A census of the gorillas that survivedin the park is planned for this year.We shall keep you informed. This willprovide reliable information instead ofspeculations on the actual number ofGrauer's (eastern lowland) gorillas.

for coltan. Probably the price for cas-siterite has recently increased on theglobal market.

To make matters worse, certainmine owners hold contracts of salethat were signed by the country’s au-thorities, who do not know where themineral resources originated. Thesedealers are well-known in Bukavu;their purchase counters are installedeverywhere close to the park

On February 26, 2004, we wereable to reach an agreement as to theevacuation of military personnel fromall ranger posts in the interior of thepark, and especially in the part of thepark visited by tourists. The programof mixed patrols has been extended toinclude monitoring of the park and thesafety of through traffic. Since Febru-ary 26, all camps of the former occupi-ers, i.e. the troops, have been burnt.

Cleaning patrols have been organ-ised in order to collect rubbish, batter-ies, plastic and other waste from af-fected areas, including those aroundthe old camps where hundreds ofmetal snares were found.

At the moment, more funds areneeded in order to reinforce the moni-toring of the park, whose integrity wehave re-established.

The GorillasCurrently, 7 gorilla families are moni-tored in the Kahuzi-Biega National

Distribution of new uniforms to the rangers of the Kahuzi-BiegaNational Park. These uniforms were donated by WWF and Berggorilla& Regenwald Direkthilfe. Photos: Carlos Schuler

D. R. CONGO


CADAKrepresentativesat the paradefor the Inter-nationalWomen's day(left picture,

from left to right: Kisonia Des-anges, Kamate Elisabeth and MissLwanzo)

During the parade, there was ap-plause from the crowd for the gorillaposters and the signs that the womencarried with them.

Summary of a report by KavughoKisonia Desanges and Masika Meso

CADAK (Coordination des Activitésde Développement Autour de Kyaviri-mu) is a union of NGOs in easternCongo near Mt. Kyavirimu (or Tshia-berimu). The organization urgentlyneeds support for its public aware-ness activities. For further informationor the complete report of the Interna-tional Women’s Day activity, pleasecontact Angela Meder [email protected].

Logging to be Intensifiedin CongoAccording to a report of the RainforestFoundation, up to 60 million of the 130million hectares of forest in the Demo-cratic Republic of Congo are nowthreatened by logging. New forestrylaws, that have been developed withsupport from the World Bank andFAO, aim to increase industrial log-ging dramatically.

During the war, logging activitieswere reduced considerably becauseof the insecurity. Now, the WorldBank wants to help companies tostart their activities again, but wantsto make sure that they are legal; thisis difficult because many of the con-cessions were not granted legally.

Increased logging would mean alsoa severe threat to the survival of thepeople living in those forests, espe-cially Pygmies. Many CongoleseNGOs are therefore united to protestagainst the plans.More on the Rainforest Foundation'swebsite:www.rainforestfoundationuk.org

CADAK at the Inter-national Women’s DayIn Butembo (about 500,000 inhabit-ants) and Kyondo (about 20,000), theorganization called CADAK took partin the parade for International Wom-en’s Day on 8 March 2004. One of theaims was to raise public awarenessfor the conservation of Mt. Kyavirimuin the Virunga National Park.

Harmony with nature was also atheme of the parade. The women whotook part therefore wore a dress withanimals and trees. They carried themessage "Non au viol et a la violencesexuelle" (No to rape and sexual vio-lence). This is an especially seriousissue for women in eastern Congo andit also concerns women who enter thenational park.

RWANDA

Virunga Gorilla CensusThe census of the Virunga Volcanoesmountain gorilla population carried outduring September and October 2003has shown a 17% increase in popula-tion size since 1989. There are now atotal of 380 gorillas in 30 socialgroups.

Six teams had traversed the entiregorilla habitat range, searching forfresh signs of gorilla groups. Theirnight nests are used to establish thenumber of gorillas in each group. Atotal of 100 team members partici-pated in the census, drawn from thestaff of the protected area authoritiesand their partners.

The Virunga gorilla census waspossible thanks to the close collabo-ration of the conservation authoritiesin the three countries, the OfficeRwandais de Tourisme et Parc Na-tionaux, the Institut Congolais pour laConservation de la Nature and theUganda Wildlife Authority. It was sup-ported by the International GorillaConservation Programme, the Wild-

life Conservation Society, the DianFossey Gorilla Fund-International, theInstitute of Tropical Forest Conserva-tion (Mbarara University of Scienceand Technology), the Dian FosseyGorilla Fund-Europe, Berggorilla &Regenwald Direkthilfe, the MountainGorilla Veterinary Project, and the

Gorilla Permit PricesAccording to Volcanoes Safaris(a tour operator offering moun-tain gorilla tours in Rwanda andUganda), on June 1, ORTPN inRwanda raised the price for go-rilla permits to US$ 375 per per-son (350 for the permit and 25 forthe park fee). UWA (UgandaWildlife Authority) is presentlyconsidering to raise permitprices too during the second halfof 2004; in May 2004 they werestill US$ 220 for Mgahinga andUS$ 275 for Bwindi.

Max Planck Institute for EvolutionaryAnthropology.

Summary of a press release by thenational park authorities of Uganda,Rwanda and the Democratic Republicof Congo. The final report has not yetbeen published.

Two young members of the Susa group in RwandaDrawing: Chisato Abe

The national parks for the Virunga gorillas in Congo, Uganda andRwanda


Map: Angela Meder


Ten Years of GorillaTourism in MgahingaIn December, 1989, a gorilla and na-ture conservation project was estab-lished on the Ugandan side of theVirunga Volcanoes. Biologist and his-torian Klaus-Jürgen Sucker started todevelop the project with support fromthe Deutscher Tierschutzbund (Ger-man Society for the Protection of Ani-mals), from the Berggorilla & Re-genwald Direkthilfe and, later, fromCIM (Center for International Migra-tion).

At that point, the area on the north-ern slopes of the three volcanoesMuhavura, Gahinga and Sabinyo wascharacterised by increasing defor-estation and transformation of the rainforest into agricultural fields. The pri-mary forest was criss-crossed by anetwork of numerous smugglers’trails. Hundreds of wire snares wereset on the game paths in order to

catch antelopes. Logging and grazingof livestock in the forest were alsoregular occurrences.

In co-operation with the Ugandanauthorities, more rangers were em-ployed and their equipment was im-proved. Very soon the first results ofthis work were noticeable. Becausethere were more rangers and theyspent more time in the forest, live-stock grazing in the forest, poachingwith snares and logging all decreased.As a result, the populations of moun-tain gorillas, golden monkeys, dui-kers, bushbuck and buffaloes, andmany other animal and plant speciesrecovered.

1990. Interviews were conducted inall the communities bordering theMgahinga Forest in order to determinepeople’s attitude towards the plannednational park (Yeoman et al., 1990;CARE/Impenetrable, 1990). The studyfound that a change in status from theexisting forest/game reserve to a na-tional park was welcomed by thepopulation. The stipulation was thatthe national park should terminate atthe well-known and highly visible row

of Australian silver oak (Grevillea ro-busta) trees along the 8,000 ft (about2,440 m) contour line and, in the west,at a somewhat lower altitude (Nya-kagezi triangle). This line of trees hadbeen planted in 1944. In the late 20th

century, many trees were still thereand well-known to the local popula-tion.

At that point in time, another optionwas to incorporate an even largerarea, i.e. the entire "Gorilla Game Re-serve", into the future national park.This option was subsequently re-jected. The population of the villagesbordering the Mgahinga Forest ex-pressed the hope that the change ofstatus to a national park would alsomean an improvement of their eco-nomic situation.

May 1991. The Ugandan parlia-ment passed a resolution to gazettethe Mgahinga Forest and parts of theGorilla Game Reserve as a nationalpark, the "Mgahinga Gorilla NationalPark". The national park’s borderslargely followed the 8,000 ft contour.The park’s area is approximately34 km2.

UGANDA

2004 is the tenth anniversary ofthe incomprehensible geno-cide in Rwanda. April 7, 1994,the day after the plane with thepresidents of Rwanda andBurundi had been shot down,the day when unspeakable vio-lent crimes started to happenin Rwanda. No outsider canimagine the deep-seated psy-chological injuries that thegenocide survivors sustained.My sympathy goes to thesepeople who lost parents, chil-dren, relatives and friends.

The following text refers toentirely different events inUganda, very removed fromwhat happened in Rwanda in1994.

Ursula Karlowski

Klaus-Jürgen Sucker with Mgahinga rangersPhoto: Ursula Karlowski


1992. Another study (Werikhe1992) not only gave an idea of peo-ple’s opinions, but also documentedthe size of the active fields and thenumber of livestock. Subsequently,these numbers helped to determinethe amount of compensation that hadto be paid to each farmer. The studyshowed clearly that 70% of the fami-lies who had fields and huts inside thenational park also owned land outside.None of the buildings had been con-structed for permanent occupation.

In the course of 1992, all settlersleft the deforested zone of the nationalpark (Zone 2) and most land use in-side the national park was stopped:this included potato farming and graz-ing of livestock (Bachou et al., 1992).In all, 221 farms were moved to newsites on public land lower down in thevalley. The settlers received compen-sation payments whose amount de-pended on the size of the nationalpark area that they previously usedand the number of their livestock. Thevegetation of Zone 2 subsequently re-generated and has increasingly beenutilised by the animals of the Mga-hinga Forest (Sucker 1993a, 1994).

In December 1992, the wheatfields inside the national park wereharvested for the last time. Sincethen, the entire area of Zone 2 hasbeen left to regenerate naturally. Theregeneration zone is approximately10 km2 and most of it extends fromabout 2,400 to 2,700 m asl.

The infrastructure of the new na-tional park was developed during1993. The guard post was moved tothe new park boundary; the northernboundary was marked with 180 ce-ment cairns spread over 14 km. Thecairns, which were about 1 m high,made the course of the boundary veryclear, but they left adjoining fieldscompletely unprotected from grazingby game animals. A hedge of Erythri-na abyssinica was therefore plantedalong the national park’s boundary. In

those areas where the volcanic rockwas very close to the surface andmade it impossible to plant Erythrina,a natural wall was erected from lavarocks. This "buffalo wall" has subse-quently been taken up by otherprojects, as it does in fact decreasebrowsing damage by game animals.

During the civil war, which smoul-dered in Rwanda for years, parts of theMgahinga Gorilla National Park some-times served as areas for paramilitary

units to retreat into. As there was therisk of these units having laid mines,all hiking trails were checked by aspecial unit of the Ugandan army withmine detectors. Unexploded mineswere detonated with dynamite. Duringthis work, the presence of 5 gorillagroups within the park was estab-lished. It also became obvious thatparts of the afro-alpine vegetationon the peaks of Mt. Gahinga andMuhavura had been destroyed duringthe civil war.

Nevertheless, eco-tourism was in-troduced on August 10th, 1993, initiallyconsisting of mountain trekking, caveviewing and hiking on nature trails.

The range of activities offered totourists was extended on January15, 1994: it was now possible to visitthe so-called Nyakagezi group. Thisgorilla group regularly moved betweenthe Ugandan and the Congolese sec-tors of the Virunga Conservation Area.During the first 2 months, only 2 visi-tors a day were taken to the gorillafamily. In March, this was increased

UGANDA

Construction of the buffalo wallwith lava rocks

Photo: Klaus-Jürgen Sucker

One of the cement cairns and the Erythrina hedgePhoto: Klaus-Jürgen Sucker


to 4 people and in May of the sameyear, a maximum of 6 paying touristswere allowed to visit the mountain go-rillas for one hour per day. One of thefirst visitor groups was

a group of representatives of theKisoro district, who could observethese famous animals at closerange for the first time and werevisibly impressed (Sucker, 1993b).

By then, 12 months had passed sincethe last harvest of the deforestedzone. Even after such a short time,the gorillas had extended their habitatto include about 80% of that zone:they found food on the fallow fields,nesting material in the small thicketsand they felt safe. From November1993 to mid-February 1994, one groupspent most of its time in this "new"zone and obviously "reconnoitred" thenewly won terrain.

They spent most of their time rela-tively close to the ranger post,mainly on the lower slopes of

Muhavura, where mountain gorillashad not been seen for over 20years… For 2 days, this gorillagroup even stayed in the very valleyof the new park headquarters. Therangers registered an access timeof only 5 minutes. [The "accesstime" is the time it takes to get fromthe start of the walk to the gorillas;comment by U. Karlowski.] Localresidents gathered at the nationalpark boundary to see the gorillas"from a safe distance" of about

100 m at the headquarters. It couldnot be determined which group(people or gorillas) watched theother group with more interest.(Sucker, 1993c).

Apart from this habituated group, asingle silverback male and anothergroup with 3 individuals utilized thenew area.

Even before gorilla tourism startedofficially in the Mgahinga Gorilla Na-tional Park, a revenue sharing systemwas developed for the population livingclose to the park. This system envis-aged the use of 20% of the incomegenerated by the park entrance feesfor project ideas coming from thepopulation, for example for the con-struction of new schools or storebuildings. These days, this concept isan integral part of the policies of theUganda Wildlife Authority, UWA, forall reserves in Uganda (Muloba &Nyiramahoro, 2002).

On June 19, 1994, Klaus-JürgenSucker died, in circumstances thatare still unresolved. His tragic, myste-rious death still raises many ques-tions and leaves a large gap that can-not be filled. Without the courageousinvolvement of all the people who havesupported the conservation of thisarea of the Virunga region, the gain inwilderness area, which can clearly beseen on satellite images, would nothave been possible. We owe a specialdebt to Klaus-Jürgen Sucker for en-suring that the mountain gorillas, aswell as numerous other species ofanimals and plants, are not only con-served but also experience an en-largement of their habitat.

Ursula Karlowski

ReferencesBachou, S. A. et al. (1992) Memorandum ofunderstanding between the representativesof the Ministry of Tourism, The Mgahinga Na-tional Park and officials and residents ofKisoro district during a meeting held at KisoroPavillon on 6 June 1992.

UGANDA

One of the first groups of gorilla touristsPhoto: Ursula Karlowski

Silverback in Zone 2Photo: Klaus-Jürgen Sucker


Care/Impenetrable (1990) Socio-demographicsurvey of the encroached area of the pro-posed Mgahinga Gorilla National Park. A re-port submitted to USAID, Uganda Mission.Muloba, P. & Nyiramahoro, M. E. (2002) Con-flict management and resolution in protectedarea management: The Uganda case. UWA.h t t p : / / w w w . d s e . d e / z e l / l a n d i n f o / p a s /se220_cm_rsa/annex3.pdfSucker, K.-J. (1993a) Mgahinga Gorilla Na-tional Park Project, Uganda: Progress in 1992.Gorilla Conservation News 7:22–23.Sucker, K.-J. (1993b) Report No. 16 of theMgahinga Gorilla National Project.Sucker, K.-J. (1993c) Report No. 17 of theMgahinga Gorilla National Project.Sucker, K.-J. (1994) Mgahinga Gorilla NationalPark Project, Uganda: 1993. Gorilla Conserva-tion News 8:20.Werikhe, S. E. W. (1992) Socio-demographicsurvey of the encroached area (zone 2) ofMgahinga Gorilla National Park in south westUganda. Report submitted to the United StatesAgency for International Development(USAID), Uganda Mission. Uganda NationalParks.Yeoman, G. H. et al. (1990) Mgahinga GorillaNational Park. Results of public enquiry andrecommendation for establishment.

News from the BwindiImpenetrable NationalParkThe Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA)has bought land within the radius of 12km of the park near Nkuringo, in anarea in which crops were being de-stroyed by gorillas and other wild ani-mals. The farmers had not been com-pensated for the destroyed crops. Theanimals had been attracted by bananaplantations close to the park bound-ary, in the area where the Nkuringogroup is in the process of being ha-bituated for gorilla tourism.

In January 2004 UWA christened 8baby gorillas that were born amongthe habituated groups in Bwindi: Mu-yambi (21 months), Malaika (15months), Nyampazi (7 months), Ka-sya (3 months), Rwamutwe (3months), Kafuruka (2 months), NoelKaconco (15 days) and Kwesiima (5days). Performances by the Batwacultural group and school childrenmarked the affair held at the parkheadquarters in Buhoma on Saturday.Recent births (in January) have in-

creased to 63 the number in the 4habituated groups in Bwindi Impen-etrable National Park. Each memberof the habituated gorilla groups hasnow been given a name by UWA.;they are all identified by noseprints.

Summaries of articles from the Ugan-dan newspaper New Vision in January2004

Conservation ThroughPublic HealthConservation Through Public Health(CTPH) is a grassroots, non-profit,non-governmental organization found-ed by Ugandans in December 2002.Its mission is to promote conservationand public health by improving primaryhealth care to people and animals inand around protected areas in Africa.The overall vision of CTPH is to preventand control disease transmissionwhere people, wildlife and livestockmeet, while cultivating a winning atti-tude to conservation and public healthin local communities. We decided tostart our programs in Uganda becausewe saw a great need to integrate con-servation and public health.

While working as a veterinarian forUWA in 1996 I was called to deal withthe first scabies skin disease out-break in the Katendegyere group ofmountain gorillas. This gorilla grouphad been visited by tourists for 3years. The severity of the disease wasage and size related, with the infantand juvenile being worst affected fol-lowed by the adult female and then thesilverback. Scabies is caused by Sar-coptes scabiei mites that burrow un-der the skin and cause intense itch-ing, hair loss, and white scaly skin.Working together with Liz Macfie ofInternational Gorilla Conservation Pro-gramme (IGCP) and Richard Kock ofKenya Wildlife Service, we immobi-lized the juvenile gorilla, Kasigazi, and

UGANDA

The author standing at the buffalo wallPhoto: Jan Betlem


took skin samples, which we stronglysuspected to be scabies. Kasigaziwas treated with Ivermectin anti-para-sitic. We later returned to immobilizethe shy mother to treat the infant,which had lost over 75% of its hair,was very thin, crying and too weak tohold onto its mother, Nyabitono. Shedropped the infant, which had died,the day after she was given her treat-ment and we were able to perform afresh post-mortem on the infant,Ruhara, which gave us further confir-mation on the scabies mites afterlaboratory diagnosis – Ruhara’sskin was covered with them.

After successfully treating thisgroup and checking on all the othergroups in Bwindi, we started to askourselves where the scabies couldhave come from. Physicians had toldus that the most common skin dis-ease in low income groups of peoplein Uganda is scabies. Why? Becauseit is a disease of poor hygiene andcrowded conditions. This particulargorilla group left the park periodically

UGANDA

and went to forage in people’s gar-dens, raiding their banana crops.Many of these people live very faraway from water and do not oftenwash their clothes. Gorillas are curi-ous and could have touched contami-nated clothing, allowing the mites tospread through the group duringgrooming. The fact that the infant wasso severely affected meant that themite was new to the group and themost likely closely related host washumans.

In early 2000, we organized partici-patory rural appraisal health educationworkshops with local communities onthe risks of human and gorilla diseasetransmission with the aim of improvingtheir health and hygiene. Not only didthey have scabies, but they also didnot cover their rubbish heaps andmany of them did not have proper pitlatrines. I teamed up with the BwindiCommunity Conservation Warden Be-non Mugerwa, Community Conserva-tion Ranger Johnson Twinomugisha,IGCP Field Officer Stephen Asuma,

and Robert Sajjabi and Benon Nko-mejo, the district health assistants.Before we began we were worried thatthe communities would think that wecare more about animals than people.

But we were pleasantly surprised.Communities that benefited from go-rilla tourism were very willing to listento us and put forward very good rec-ommendations on how to improve thesituation. They saw the benefits ofimproving their health and hygiene notonly for themselves, but also to pro-tect a sustainable source of incomefrom gorilla tourism. Before mountaingorilla tourism came along, thesepoor, rural communities had very littlehope of overcoming their poverty.Now, mud huts that were once sellinglocal brew have been transformed intoflourishing trading centers because ofthe traffic associated with tourism.UWA has employed many people;bandas have been built for the com-munity to accommodate low budgettourists and other income generatingprojects. Additionally some of thetourism revenue is shared with com-munities surrounding the park, andused to build schools, clinics androads.

During these workshops I realizedthat communities that had many tour-ism benefits were very different fromthose that did not. It was clear that notonly was poor health and hygiene af-fecting public health and wildlife con-servation, but it was also affectingsustainable ecotourism.

This case study was the root of anidea to start an NGO that promotedboth conservation and public health forthe benefit of both. I went on to do aZoological Medicine Residency andMaster at North Carolina State Univer-sity and North Carolina ZoologicalPark. During this time I got the oppor-tunity to carry out field surveys on TBat the human/wildlife/livestock inter-face in Bwindi Impenetrable andQueen Elizabeth National Parks.

Houses with banana plants in Buhoma. Gorillas love their pithPhoto: Angela Meder

These surveys highlighted how muchTB, another disease of poverty, was apublic health challenge in Uganda.

Together with my husband Law-rence Zikusoka, Founder and Directorof ICT (Information and Communica-tion Technology) for Development, andSteven Rubanga, Founder and ChiefVeterinary Technician, we formedConservation Through Public Health.

CTPH held a strategic planningworkshop with stakeholders in Sep-tember 2003 at the Institute of Tropi-cal Forest Conservation in Ruhija,Bwindi. The North Carolina ZoologicalSociety funded the workshop. Theworkshop brought together stake-holders from the government, NGOs,

Support for Public Health around BwindiWe want to support the activities of Conservation Through Public Health toimprove the health of the population living near the Bwindi ImpenetrableNational Park and at the same time of the gorillas there. The organizationurgently needs technical material, for example:

– field microscopes– solar panels– GPS recorders– pulse oximeters– projector for power point

presentations

We promised to donate as much of this material as we can afford.

Do you want to help us to support this innovative approach toconservation in Uganda? You can do this by providing either fundsor some of the items that are needed!

If you want to donate technical material,please contact us first for details.You will get more information from:Berggorilla & Regenwald Direkthilfec/o Rolf BrunnerLerchenstr. 545473 Muelheim, GermanyFax +49-208-7671605E-mail [email protected]

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UGANDA

– LCD screens for PCs with software– internet access– laptop with software– server with software– digital cameras– binoculars

private sector including tour operators,universities and schools.

The workshop came out with sixstrategic objectives, to guide our pro-grams and activities for the next fewyears. Some of these include publicawareness, strengthening communityhealth outreach including TB treat-ments and improving health monitor-ing and disease surveillance of wildand domestic animals. So far, CTPHhas formed Memoranda of Under-standing with UWA and the CISCONetworking Academy for Least Devel-oped Countries Initiative of MakerereUniversity’s Department of Womenand Gender Studies. We opened anoffice in the capital city, Kampala, and

share a building with IUCN, the WorldConservation Union, and the WildlifeConservation Society. We are veryprivileged to have Hope Walker jointhe CTPH team as our US Repre-sentative and Director of Marketing inNovember 2003.

Conservation Through PublicHealth urgently seeks financial andin-kind support from interested indi-viduals and organizations, and willsoon be starting a membership pro-gram.

Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka

For more information visitwww.ctph.org or sign [email protected] for regular updates.


GORILLAS


The Gorillas of the EboForest, CameroonCameroon is a particularly importanthabitat country for gorillas since it hastwo subspecies, separated by severalhundred kilometers of forest and theSanaga River. Gorilla gorilla gorilla, orthe western lowland gorilla, was, untilrecently, thought to be restricted toareas south of the Sanaga River, andhas been hard hit by hunting for atleast the past 100 years. This south-ern region of Cameroon has also beenaffected by commercial logging activi-ties for decades, and most of the fewremaining populations are increas-ingly under threat. Gorilla gorilla diehli,or the Cross River gorilla, is even moreendangered, with numbers estimatedat around 250 split into at least nineisolated populations north of theSanaga River along the Cameroon-Ni-geria border (Oates et al. 2003).

In late 2002 a gorilla populationseparated from the lowland gorillapopulation south of the Sanaga Riverby around 100 km (distance to theSanaga), and from the Cross Rivergorilla population by ca. 200 km, was"discovered" in the Ebo forest, LittoralProvince, by a field team of the Centerfor Reproduction of Endangered Spe-cies, Zoological Society of San Diego(CRES) and 7 gorillas were observedfor almost two hours (Morgan et al.2003). The first suggestion that goril-las might occur within this forest re-sulted from a four-day survey of Eboby F. Dowsett-Lemaire and R. J. Dow-sett in 2001. They noted 8 old gorillanests, but no direct sightings or otherconfirmation of the existence of goril-las in this forest was obtained. Mostrecently, in March 2004, the CRESfield team observed a lone male gorillafor 15 minutes.

One interesting point worth notingabout the gorillas in Ebo is their pro-pensity to nest high in the trees. Dur-ing our gorilla encounter in late 2002,

we have reported that all 6 day nestswere arboreal, constructed at between15 m to over 30 m above the ground(Morgan et al. 2003). At the site of ourmost recent sighting in March 2004, 4night nests were discovered, all over18 m from the ground. Possible rea-sons for the low frequency of groundnests elsewhere have included risk ofdisturbance (e.g. by elephants) or alack of suitable ground nesting mate-rial. In Ebo, the abundance of largerocks and boulders throughout thearea may be an added incentive tobuild arboreal nests.

The discovery of the Ebo gorillapopulation raises important questionsas to the nature and role of zoo-geographic barriers to speciation inthis region, as well as taxonomic af-finities of this new population. Al-though Ebo and the contiguous forestblocks are poorly known, the Ebo go-rilla population may represent a rem-nant of a previous distribution, extend-ing across the Sanaga River to the

extant Cross River/Takamanda popu-lation. The majority of the interveningpopulations may have been extirpatedby a high degree of human distur-bance in Cameroon over at least thelast century. Both the Cross Riverpopulations and this newly discoveredpopulation are currently restricted tohigher elevation and inaccessible for-est, which probably accounts for theircontinued existence. Most recent evi-dence indicates that there are no fullyreliable methods for obtaining high-quality DNA from non-invasive sam-ples in gorillas (Thalmann et al. 2004),but we are collecting both hair andfaecal samples wherever possible.

The Ebo forest is one of the largestsingle areas of lowland and montaneforests in Cameroon, covering 1,424km2 of semi-deciduous and evergreenforest in Littoral Province. Topograph-ically it consists of a series of hills andmountains with steep slopes anddeep valleys, with an altitudinal rangefrom less than 200 m to over 1,200 m.

The Ebo gorilla population and the areas where specimens of westernlowland and Cross River gorillas were collected

Map: Bethan Morgan

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The gorilla population appears to becentered on a series of steep moun-tains close to the abandoned village ofBekob. Although today the forest isdevoid of permanent habitation, untilthe 1960s several villages pepperedEbo, including Bekob, which washome to a German missionary doctorwho ran a small hospital. The tribalwars during this period caused wide-spread unrest, and the enclaved vil-lages were abandoned, with the inhab-itants creating new settlements orjoining existing villages that today runalong the northern edge of the Eboforest.

The Ebo forest is unusual inCameroon, because it is currentlythinly populated, the challenging to-pography has limited the potential forcommercial logging and it harbors asignificant and diverse assemblage oflarge mammals. We found extensiveevidence of drills (Mandrillus leuco-phaeus), one of the most endangered

primate species in Africa, in Ebo dur-ing recent field expeditions, and man-aged to make a number of direct ob-servations. Chimpanzee populationsin Cameroon are more numerous thangorillas, but are still under intensehunting pressure in almost all areas.Gonder et al. (1997) proposed thatthere are two subspecies of chimpan-zee in Cameroon – Pan troglodytestroglodytes south of the Sanaga riverand Pan troglodytes vellerosus to thenorth. Several populations of thisnortherly subspecies, first describedas long ago as 1862 but only recentlyrecognised as a valid subspecies,have become extinct in the wild lessthan a decade after first being docu-mented, but in Ebo populations arestill extensive and we regularly hearchimpanzees during our fieldwork.

In addition to gorillas, chimpanzeesand drills, there are 8 other diurnalprimate species at Ebo. Both Preuss’red colobus (Piliocolobus preussi)

and Preuss’ guenon (Cercopithecuspreussi) are endangered species, yetboth appear to be present in goodnumbers at Ebo. The latter species isvery sensitive to hunting and has al-ready disappeared from a number oflocalities elsewhere in Cameroon. Inaddition, the mona monkey (Cercop-ithecus mona), putty-nose monkey(C. nictitans), crowned monkey (C.pogonias) and the red-eared monkey(C. erythrotis) have been observed, to-gether with the red-capped manga-bey, Cercocebus torquatus and gue-reza colobus, Colobus guereza.

Forest elephants (Loxodonta afri-cana cyclotis) still occur in Ebo,though they have been hunted out inmost of the surrounding areas. Forestbuffalo (Syncerus caffer nanus), redriver hog (Potamochoerus porcus),sitatunga (Tragelaphus spekei), bush-buck (T. scriptus) and several duikerspecies are also present.

The Ebo forest, together with twofurther areas – Makombe and Nlona-ko – were designated "Proposed Pro-tected Areas" by the Government ofCameroon in January 2003, with thegazettement and demarcation proc-ess due to commence in late 2004.This process will be undertaken by ateam under technical supervision fromCRES Cameroon and WWF CoastalForests Program. In May 2004 CRESCameroon will establish a permanentfield presence at Ebo in order to havea base from which to study the gorillapopulation. Field studies are also im-portant since the ape populationshave an additional degree of protectionbecause researchers will maintain amonitoring presence in the field aswell as enabling the constituency ofpublic interest and support, both inCameroon and elsewhere.

We also plan to conduct transectsurveys throughout the Ebo forest toassess the distribution and density ofthe gorillas, and will additionally sur-vey forest outside the present limits of

The mountains of the Ebo forestPhoto: Bethan Morgan


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the proposed protected area to ascer-tain whether the current boundarieswill be sufficient to protect the Ebogorillas.

There are several communities situ-ated around the Ebo forest, and theimpact of these populations on theforest has not yet been quantified nordescribed systematically, but it isclear that human population density islow.

Although hunting for the commer-cial bushmeat trade is likely to beimportant in the villages to the southgiven the proximity of major townssuch as Douala, the mountainous ter-rain has restricted hunting within thecentral area of Ebo. The small villagesto the north seem to be sustained bybushmeat extraction sold (mostly) lo-cally. Given the parallel mountainranges running north-south throughoutthis region, with steep valleys anddeep rivers, hunters do not penetratefar in the area from either east norwest, and so thanks largely to its to-pography, both the plants and animalsof the proposed Ebo protected areahave been relatively spared the effectsof habitat destruction found elsewherein Cameroon. We intend to start astudy of bushmeat offtake in villagesand towns to the north of the Eboforest in mid-2004, which will entailclose collaboration with Cameroonianauthorities.

Bethan Morgan

Grateful thanks to the Government ofCameroon (DFAP-MINEF) for contin-ued collaboration, and to the MargotMarsh Biodiversity Foundation andthe Offield Family Foundation for fi-nancial support. Thanks also to ourcollaborators, WWF Coastal ForestsProgram and WCS Cameroon.

ReferencesGonder, M. K. et al. (1997) A new west Afri-can chimpanzee subspecies? Nature388:337.

Morgan, B. J. et al. (2003) Newly discoveredgorilla population in the Ebo forest. LittoralProvince, Cameroon. International Journal ofPrimatology 24(5):1129–1137.Oates, J. F. et al. (2003) The Cross Rivergorilla: Natural history and status of a ne-glected and critically endangered subspe-cies. Pp. 472–497 in: Taylor, A. B. & Gold-smith, M. L. (eds.) Gorilla Biology: a multi-disciplinary approach. Cambridge (CambridgeUniversity Press).Thalmann, O. et al. (2004) Unreliable mtDNAdata due to nuclear insertions: a cautionarytale from analysis of humans and other greatapes. Mol. Ecol. 13:321–335.

NetworkingSilverbacks?Much of what we know about the be-haviour of gorillas in the wild comesfrom studies of the habituated moun-tain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei)at Karisoke Research Center inRwanda. The lives of the Karisoke go-rillas have been monitored for over

three decades and study subjectscross multiple gorilla generations(Robbins et al. 2001). By comparison,we know rather little about the socialbehaviour of the wild western gorillas(Gorilla gorilla) that live in the denselowland forests of western equatorialAfrica. In such forests it is difficult tomonitor gorillas from a distance, andwestern gorillas have been notoriouslydifficult to habituate to the presence ofhuman observers.

However, after years of effort, re-searchers at several sites have finallybeen successful in habituating somewestern gorilla groups to sustainedobservation. Another successful strat-egy has been a ‘wait and watch’ ap-proach in which observers on plat-forms at the edge of forest clearings(or bais) monitor the comings and go-ings of multiple groups (e.g. Parnell2002). Both types of study have high-lighted something rather unusual:

A silverback in MondikaPhoto: Roberta Salmi

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western gorilla groups frequently reactmore calmly to the presence of othergorillas than do mountain gorillas(Doran et al. 2004). These peacefulinteractions between different westerngorilla groups puzzle researchers be-cause in many primates, when differ-ent social groups cross paths, inter-actions are often hostile. This is espe-cially true in species like gorillas inwhich females can transfer betweengroups during inter-group interactions.Male mountain gorillas have been ob-served to aggressively defend theirfemales against males from othergroups by chest beating, charging andactively herding females (Sicotte1993).

Why then are some western gorillamales more nonchalant in their inter-actions with other gorilla males? Re-cent analyses of genetic relationshipsamong 14 silverbacks at Mondika Re-search Center (Central African Repub-lic and Republic of Congo) indicatethat the majority of silverbacks rang-ing in the study site are related (father-son or brothers) to one or more malesleading nearby groups (Bradley et al.2004). This results in what appear tobe clusters or networks of relatedmales. So perhaps these oddlypeaceful interactions between west-ern gorilla groups are simply silver-back family reunions.

But how might these males recog-nize each other as relatives? Not allinteractions between western gorillagroups are peaceful, in fact some haveinvolved violent interactions betweensilverbacks that have led to fatal inju-ries. This suggests that silverbacksmight know which males are relativesand which are not and respond ac-cordingly.

A possible clue to how male rela-tives might recognize each other isalso found in the genetic data. Virtu-ally all western gorilla groups ob-served to-date have only one silver-back, and DNA-based paternity analy-

ses indicate that the group silverbacksires all of the group offspring, that is,there is no evidence that females pro-duce offspring with immature males orwith males outside of the group. Thus,the silverback can be fairly certain thatan infant is his and an infant can befairly certain that the group silverbackis his father, and the time together inthe same group gives them a chanceto learn to recognize each other.

But how would brothers recognizeeach other? If some silverbacks canmaintain leadership of their groups forlong periods of time, as is indicatedfrom observational and genetic data,then all gorillas growing up together inthe same group will be paternal half-siblings. Lengthy periods of infant andjuvenile development (~8 years) allowfor years of interaction among paternalsiblings. These siblings could thenlater recognize each other long afterleaving the natal group. Social famili-arity has been demonstrated as animportant mechanism for kin reco-gnition in other primates, such asmacaques (Widdig et al. 2001) andbaboons (Smith et al. 2003). Thus, itis plausible that such paternal-kin rec-ognition could also play an importantrole in the social lives and socialbonds of gorillas. The gorilla male net-work hypothesis suggests that pater-nal kin ties among silverbacks are afundamental component of westerngorilla social structure.

However, the idea that social rela-tions among groups vary with the de-gree of relatedness among males isbased upon consideration of genetic,but not behavioural data, from somegroups and behavioural, but not ge-netic data, from others. Testing ofthe hypothesis requires determiningwhether peacefully interacting silver-backs are really relatives, or if theirlaid back attitudes are based onsomething other than kinship. This re-search, combining observations andgenetic characterization of the exact

same groups, is underway atMondika.

If this ongoing genetic study findsadditional support for our hypothesisthat western gorilla silverbacks areforming social networks with malerelatives, these findings could havebroad importance for our understand-ing of ape and human social evolution.Indeed, these results suggest that a"patrilocal" social system, that is, asocial system in which males stay inthe region of their birth and potentiallybenefit from male kin associationswhile females leave, is a feature unit-ing African ape and human societies.Brenda Bradley, Diane Doran-Sheehy

and Linda Vigilant

ReferencesBradley, B. J. et al. (2004) Dispersed malenetworks in western gorillas. Current Biology14:510–513.Doran, D. M. et al. (2004) Ecological and socialimpact on ranging in western gorillas. Amer. J.Primatol., in press.Parnell, R. J. (2002) Group size and structurein western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorillagorilla) at Mbeli Bai, Republic of Congo. Amer.J. Primatol. 56:193–206.Robbins, M. M. et al. (eds.) (2001) MountainGorillas. Cambridge (Cambridge UniversityPress).Sicotte, P. (1993) Inter-group encounters andfemale transfer in mountain gorillas: Influenceof group composition on male behavior. Amer.J. Primatol. 30:21–36.Smith, K. et al. (2003) Wild female baboonsbias their social behaviour toward paternalhalf-sisters. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci.270:503–510.Widdig, A. et al. (2001) Paternal relatednessand age proximity regulate social relation-ships among adult female rhesus macaques.Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 98:13769–13773.

The Problem with GorillaMitochondrial DNAAnalysisA mere glance at a map of the distri-bution of gorillas in Africa reveals astriking pattern. In contrast to chim-panzees, which occur more or lesscontinuously across equatorial Africa,

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gorillas are limited to two discontinu-ous areas in West and East CentralAfrica. While western gorillas are rela-tively numerous, with an estimated to-tal population of up to 110,000 indi-viduals distributed over about 709,000km2, gorillas in eastern Africa aremuch more limited in number andfound principally in scattered pop-ulations (Sarmiento 2003). This pat-tern raises interesting questions,such as the length of time westernand eastern gorillas have been sepa-rate from one another, and whetherthe populations have been very differ-ent in size for a long time or onlyrather recently.

To address such questions, scien-tists have often turned to laboratoryanalysis to estimate the relativeamounts and geographical pattern ofgenetic variation present in repre-sentatives of the populations of inter-est. A commonly-used tool in suchstudies is analysis of the mitochon-drial DNA (mtDNA), a type of DNAfound in all cells, but separate fromthe genomic DNA that forms the chro-mosomes. Some peculiar propertiesof mtDNA, such as a particularly highrate of evolution and maternal inherit-ance, make it especially informativefor studying the evolution of pop-ulations in the last tens of thousandsor few million years (Avise 2000).

Research published in the last dec-ade on the pattern of mtDNA evolutionin gorillas estimated a date of about2.2 million years ago for the split be-tween western and eastern gorillamtDNA (Ruvolo 1996) and suggestedthat the amount of variation withinwestern gorillas was about ten timesgreater than that found within easterngorillas (Garner and Ryder 1996) – astriking difference in comparison withresults from studies of other animalpopulations. However, while mountaingorillas were sampled intensively fromtheir small range in the wild, far fewerwestern gorillas were analyzed and

most of those were captive individualswhose ultimate origins in Africa wereunknown. This made it difficult to di-rectly compare levels of variation be-tween western and eastern gorillassince the sampling schemes were sodifferent. Another remaining questionof interest was determining how thegenetic variation was distributedacross the range of western gorillas.

We decided to conduct a study ofgorilla mtDNA using samples fromwild gorillas. We relied upon non-invasive samples such as feces or hairthat could be collected from nests

without disturbing the animals. Backin the lab, we used standard polymer-ase chain reaction (PCR) techniquesto make copies of our target mtDNAsegment of interest – the hyper-variable segment of the control region.This segment is frequently used instudies examining variation withinspecies as it contains the most varia-tion in the mitochondrial genome.

We almost immediately ran into dif-ficulties because we often found morethan the expected one unique se-quence per individual. The multiplicityof sequences was suspected to bedue to the inadvertent inclusion ofpieces of mtDNA that had becomecopied to the nuclear genome, so-called "nuclear insertions of mtDNA"or "numts" (Lopez et al. 1994). Thesenumts occur in a variety of animalgenomes, and if recently-integratednumts very similar to the mtDNA seg-ment of interest are present, it can bevery hard to reliably distinguish realmtDNA from numts (Bensasson et al.,2001). Some suggestions for distin-guishing authentic mtDNA sequencesfrom numts rely upon comparison ofquestionable sequences with those ofassumed authenticity, and a newstudy investigating mtDNA variation inwild gorillas relies upon such compari-sons (Clifford et al., 2004). Troubledby the uncertainty inherent in suchsubjective comparisons, we decidedto investigate the matter directly.

We used a method ("long-range"PCR) that could produce only the au-thentic mtDNA from two individuals, awestern and an eastern gorilla, andcompared the results to the collectionof sequences obtained from thosesame individuals using conventionalPCR methods (Thalmann et al.,2004). We had hoped to see consist-ent differences between the authenticmtDNAs and the imposter numt se-quences, so that we would be ableto use these differences as criteriafor determining authenticity of se-

The problem with numts.I) A segment of mtDNA becomesintegrated in the nuclear DNA.II) Potential outcome of a PCRamplification targeting a DNAsegment that is present in themtDNA and also in the nuclearDNA. III) Tree analysis depictingclose relationships among authen-tic mtDNA sequences and recentlyintegrated nuclear copies.

quences. Unfortunately, the numt se-quences were so numerous and sosimilar to the authentic sequences, noreliable criteria could be devised thatwould allow distinguishing of the au-thentic sequences. This was espe-cially disappointing as the long-rangePCR procedure required to produceauthentic mtDNA sequences requiresthe use of high-quality DNA samplesderived from blood or tissue, and sowe have as yet no way to determineauthentic mtDNA sequences from ourfecal and hair specimens.

Interestingly, we also conductedthe same analysis using representa-tives of the other great ape species,and had no difficulties in reliably gen-erating authentic mtDNA sequencesfrom humans, chimpanzees, bonobosand orangutans. The underlying rea-sons why numts are prevalent in someanimal genomes, and relatively infre-quent in others, are currently notknown (Bensasson et al., 2001).

The take-home message of ourstudy was that all conclusions basedupon analyses of gorilla mtDNA con-trol region variation should be consid-ered suspect. A total of three se-quences from captive gorillas havebeen authenticated. Some of the restof the data generated may also even-tually be proven to be authentic andhence usable, but an objective as-sessment is impossible at presenttime since the means for direct valida-tion – DNA from blood or tissue sam-ples – are not available from mostindividuals. This suggests that in-sights into patterns of genetic varia-tion in gorillas will depend upon analy-sis of genetic segments occurring inthe nuclear DNA.

In a new study, researchers usedanalysis of 50 nuclear DNA segmentssampled from captive individuals to in-fer a level of nucleotide diversity ingorillas twice as high as that in hu-mans, but only slightly higher than inchimpanzees (Yu et al., 2004). If the

technical challenges of working withDNA from noninvasive samples can besurmounted, application of a similarapproach of surveying multiple, inde-pendently-evolving nuclear DNA seg-ments from wild individuals may pro-vide a reliable means towards obtain-ing more detailed insights into thepopulation history of gorillas.

Linda Vigilant, Olaf Thalmann andBrenda Bradley

ReferencesBensasson, D. et al. (2001) Mitochondrialpseudogenes: evolution’s misplaced wit-nesses. Trends Ecol. Evol. 16:314–321.Clifford, S. L. et al. (2004) Mitochondrial DNAphylogeography of western lowland gorillas(Gorilla gorilla gorilla). Mol. Ecol., in press.Garner, K. J. & Ryder, O. A. (1996) Mitochon-drial DNA diversity in gorillas. Mol. Phylogenet.Evol. 6:39–48.Lopez, J. V. et al. (1994) Numt, a recent trans-fer and tandem amplification of mitochondrialDNA to the nuclear genome of the domesticcat. J. Mol. Evol. 39:174–190Ruvolo, M. (1996) A new approach to study-ing modern human origins: hypothesis testingwith coalescence time distributions. Mol.Phylogenet. Evol. 5:202–219Sarmiento, E. E. (2003) Distribution, tax-onomy, genetics, ecology, and causal links ofgorilla survival: The need to develop practicalknowledge for gorilla conservation. In: Taylor,A. B. & Goldsmith, M. L. (eds.) Gorilla Biology:A Multidisciplinary Perspective. Cambridge(Cambridge University Press).Thalmann, O. et al. (2004) Unreliable mtDNAdata due to nuclear insertions: a cautionarytale from analysis of humans and other greatapes. Mol. Ecol. 13:321–335Yu, N. et al. (2004) Nucleotide diversity ingorillas. Genetics, in press.

Resolution of theEuropean ParliamentDuring the bushmeat campaign of theEuropean zoo association EAZA 1.9million signatures were collected for apetition to the European Parliament.They were handed over in November2001. A resolution was finally adoptedon 14 January 2004.

It urges the Commission to inte-grate an EU strategy and action plan

GORILLAS

on bushmeat in the context of imple-menting the EU biodiversity actionplan, to encourage full stakeholderparticipation involving local popula-tions, civil society, government, aswell as the private sector, and provideall necessary support, including ca-pacity building, to empower localpopulations and civil society to partici-pate fully in this process. Special at-tention should be paid to capacitybuilding of wildlife, forestry and natureconservation authorities, law enforce-ment and anti-poaching measures,planning and management of nationalparks and other conservation areas,strategic environmental assessmentsfor proposed policy reforms; environ-mental impact assessments for allinfrastructure, and other relevantprojects.

The Commission is urged, amongother things, to assist communitiesthat traditionally relied on bushmeatas their principal source of animal pro-tein to develop the means to purchaseother foodstuffs, to support educa-tional and information campaigns. Itcalls for EU financial support forecotourism in order to encourage localcommunities to protect endangeredspecies, particularly the great apes,to develop, together with the timberindustry and the developing countriesconcerned, ways and means to con-trol bushmeat hunting on conces-sions. Bushmeat issues, criteria andindicators should be included in theEuropean FLEGT (Forest Law En-forcement, Governance and Trade)process, and the conservation andsustainable use of wildlife should beincluded in the development policy ofthe EU. Moreover, measures and re-sources put in place by MemberStates to detect and prevent illegalimports of bushmeat into Europe andassess the adequacy of legal deter-rents and penalties should be as-sessed.



READING

Steven V. Price (ed.)War and Tropical Forests. Conserva-tion in areas of armed conflict. Bing-hamton (Food Products Press ofHaworth Press) 2003. 239 pages.Hardcover US$ 49.95. ISBN 1-56022-098-8; paperback US$ 24.95. ISBN1-56022-099-6.

In 2000, a conference of research-ers, conservationists and policy mak-ers took place, and some of the contri-butions were published now in thisbook. But the subject matter is stillrelevant, and this book will certainlybe interesting to anybody who worksin tropical forest conservation withinareas of armed conflict.

Apart from a few general contribu-tions (e. g. by Jeffrey McNeely andAnnette Lanjouw) the book consists ofexamples from a number of countries:Nicaragua, Colombia, Rwanda, the D.R. Congo, and Indonesia. Especiallyinteresting for gorilla conservation arethe contributions by Andrew Plumptreon Rwanda and Congo and JuichiYamagiwa on the Kahuzi-Biega Na-tional Park. Both authors summarizethe history of the conflicts in the GreatLakes region, discuss their effects,and provide recommendations on ap-propriate conservation strategies.

The authors not only describe thesituation but also discuss "lessonslearned" in their projects. They explainthe negative (and positive) effects ofconflicts and wars on biodiversity andconservation and discuss strategiesto maintain conservation in this ex-tremely difficult situation. They stressthe importance of collaboration be-tween all NGOs, especially also withhumanitarian and relief organizations,governments, advocacy groups andmilitary. It is important that interna-tional NGOs continue their activities.Even in situations like these, conser-vation can be secured, but workingunder such dangerous conditions re-quires considerable flexibility and ex-perience. Moreover, the motivation of

local staff and the local population iseven more crucial.

Angela Meder

William M. AdamsAgainst Extinction. The story of con-servation. London (Earthscan) 2004.327 pages. Hardcover, £ 48.00, ISBN1-84407-055-7; paperback £ 16.95,ISBN 1-84407-056-5.

This book was written on the occa-sion of the 100th anniversary of FFI(Fauna and Flora International) anddeals with the development of the ideaof conservation during that period. Theauthor looks at the subject from hisown viewpoint (the view of a westernexpert with a focus on FFI) but thehistoric account he gives is interestingfor anybody working in conservation. Itexplains why it is so difficult to con-vince local people of the necessity toprotect certain areas.

Adams starts at the end of the 19thcentury, when (white) hunters and set-tlers in colonial Africa had destroyedand dramatically reduced a number ofspecies. During that time, conserva-tion meant to protect wildlife for elitehunting. The early conservation organ-izations accepted "sport hunting", butnot subsistence hunting by the localpeople. During the 20th century, sev-eral new concepts were introduced,and since the 1980s biodiversity con-servation has come to be regarded asmost important. But often, the sameideas return again and again; even atthe beginning of the 20th century, forexample, the funding of protected ar-eas was being discussed with similararguments as today.

Adams introduces the various (ex-clusively American/European!) con-servation concepts with their advan-tages and weaknesses, especially re-garding the local populations. Thoseconcepts are often contradictory; thismakes the cooperation of organiza-tions almost impossible sometimes,and it makes it difficult to convince

local NGOs and other partners (whohave to accommodate themselves tothe changing perspectives). Today,many conservation organizations usecorporate methods with all that thatentails, and Adams doubts that thiswill improve conservation.

He concludes that the threats tonature have not reduced, but haveeven increased within the last 100years. None of the concepts that wereutilized during that time has provided asolution for the protection of nature – itis still a challenge. Adams suggeststhat we open up to new ideas andcooperate with new partners.

Angela Meder

Anne E. Russon and David Begun(eds.)The Evolution of Thought. Evolu-tionary origins of great ape intelli-gence. Cambridge (Cambridge Univer-sity Press) 2004. 394 pages, 36 illus-trations, 48 tables. Hardcover, £ 65.ISBN 0-521-78335-6.

What is so special about great apecognition in comparison to monkeysand to humans – and how did itevolve? This question is discussedhere; the book provides a good over-view of the present state of research.

In the introduction, the most impor-tant hypotheses are explained briefly,and in the main part of the book anumber of authors analyze and dis-cuss these ideas. Often the samesubjects are reviewed by several au-thors with varying viewpoints. The au-thors are on the one hand researcherswho work with great apes in the wildand on the other hand palaeontolo-gists who study the development ofthe hominoids. Most of them are notmainly occupied with cognition, butrather with ecology, social structure,skills and tool use, anatomy (espe-cially of the brain), life history andother subjects.

In the final chapter the editors dis-cuss the hypotheses introduced at

the beginning by summarizing the re-sults of the contributions. They con-clude that many factors were involvedin the evolution of great ape intelli-gence, "a particular constellation ofecological and social pressures andpossibilities". There is definitely stillroom for more research.

Angela Meder

Rebecca Kormos, ChristopheBoesch, Mohamed I Bakarr andThomas M. Butynski (eds.)West African Chimpanzees. Statussurvey and conservation action plan.Gland, Cambridge (IUCN) 2003. 228pages, many illustrations. Paperback£ 18, US$ 27. ISBN 2-8317-0733-1.

Peter Kappeler and Carel vanSchaik (eds.)Sexual Selection in Primates.Cambridge (Cambridge UniversityPress) 2004. 298 pages, 46 illustra-tions, 14 tables. Paperback, £ 40.ISBN 0-521-53738-X.

Fred Anapol, Rebecca Z. Germanand Nina G. Jablonski (eds.)Shaping Primate Evolution. Form,function and behaviour. Cambridge(Cambridge University Press) 2004.442 pages, 106 illustrations, 39tables. Hardcover, £ 70. ISBN 0-521-81107-4

Laura K. Marsh (ed.)Primates in Fragments. Ecologyand Conservation. New York (PlenumPress) 2003. 428 pages. Hardcover,US$ 135. ISBN 0-306-47696-7.

W. Adams and M. Mulligan (eds.)Decolonizing Nature: Strategies forconservation in a post-colonial era.London (Earthscan) 2003. XII, 308pages. Paperback £ 16.95, ISBN1-85383-749-0.

Jean HatzfeldUne Saison de machettes. Paris

(Seuil) 2003. 312 pages. Paperback,Euro 19. ISBN 2020612143.

Hervé CheuzevilleKadogo, enfants des guerresd'Afrique centrale: Soudan, Ougan-da, Rwanda, Congo. L'Harmattan2003. 311 pages. Paperback, Euro26. ISBN 2747548511.

Patrick de Saint-ExupéryL'inavouable. La France auRwanda. Paris (Les Arènes) 2004.287 pages. Paperback, Euro 19.90.ISBN 2912485703.

Linda MelvernConspiracy to Murder: the Rwandagenocide and the international com-munity. London (Verso Books) 2004.256 pages. Hardcover, US$ 25. ISBN1859845886.

Dawn Prince-HughesSongs of the Gorilla Nation. NewYork (Harmony Books) 2004. 240pages. Hardcover, US$ 24. ISBN1-40005058-8.

Great Ape ProjectGreat Ape Project Census. Avail-able for US$ 14.95 at the Great ApeProject website:www.greatapeproject.org

Graham BennettIntegrating Biodiversity Conserva-tion and Sustainable Use: LessonsLearned From Ecological Networks.Gland (IUCN) 2004

This book can also be downloadedas pdf-file (>2 Mb) at www.iucn.org/themes/cem/library/publication/ecological_networks_graham_bennett.pdf

New on the InternetThe Last Great Ape OrganizationCameroon (LAGA) presents its workat www.lastgreatape.org. The main


READING

activities of this organization are intel-ligence, law enforcement, legal as-sistance and media contact.

In 2003 a survey was finished onMt. Tshiaberimu, Democratic Repub-lic of Congo, and the report is providedfor download at the DFGF-E (13 Mb).It also includes a detailed report onthe 20 gorillas that were countedthere, with photos. www.dianfossey.net/reports/0311tshiaberimu.pdf

The Congo Basin Forest Partner-ship is a project introduced by theUSA and South Africa during theWorld Summit on Sustainable Devel-opment in Johannesburg in 2002.More information on the program isavailable on its website:www.cbfp.org

Great Apes – the road ahead is areport edited by Christian Nellemann(UNEP Grid-Arendal, Norway) andAdrian Newton (UNEP World Conser-vation Monitoring Centre, Cambridge),available at www.globio.info. Thereport looks in detail at the great apespecies to assess the current, re-maining habitat deemed relatively un-disturbed and thus able to supportviable populations of apes. The ex-perts have then mapped the likely im-pact and area of healthy habitat left in2030 at current levels of infrastructuregrowth.

Satellite images of Central Africaare available for download on theCARPE website (http://carpe.umd.edu/landsat), the ESA/SOGHA site(http://styx.esrin.esa.it/sogha) andat INFORMS (http://luci.umd.edu/lcluc/lcluc/data.htm).

An IRIN Web Special on Life innorthern Uganda: "When the SunSets, We Start to Worry..." is avail-able atwww.irinnews.org/webspecials/northernuganda/default.asp

PASA (Pan African Sanctuary Alli-ance) has a website – still under con-struction, but already with information:www.panafricanprimates.org


General MeetingOn February 28/29, 2004, the bi-an-nual general meeting of the Berggorilla& Regenwald Direkthilfe took place inWesseling near Cologne. EichholzCastle, an education centre of theKonrad Adenauer Foundation, was apleasant venue. Former board mem-ber Carola Vogelsberg organised eve-rything extremely well.

Angela Meder and Iris Weiche re-ported on the numerous activities ofthe last two years and informed theaudience about the current politicalsituation in the various areas. In addi-tion, guest speakers talked abouttheir experience in Africa. For exam-ple, Yvonne Verkaik, who supportsthe society in Uganda, reported first-hand on the current situation there.Jessica Ganas, who is conducting astudy in Bwindi for the Leipzig MaxPlanck Institute for Evolutionary An-thropology, talked about her studies ofthe Bwindi gorillas – the differences ofhabitat, food and behaviour.

Finally, Olaf Paterok (Rettet denDrill) reported on the Pandrillus projectin Nigeria. The drill ranch was foundedin Nigeria as early as 1991. Today,over 100 animals have been bred and

raised there (by their mothers). Mostof them now live on Afi Mountain,which they share with the Cross Rivergorillas, who are as much at risk asthe drills.

The evening concluded with a so-cial gathering, personal conversationsand the opportunity to watch videos.One of the videos showed a celebra-tion in Kahuzi Biega, held on the oc-casion of the handing over of equip-ment. Others were touching films andphotographs from private collections,showing visits to the gorillas. Theyprobably infected all the people whowere watching them with wanderlust.

The official part of the event tookplace on the second day. The soci-ety’s finances were made public andthe organizational structure of the so-ciety was explained. After the treas-urer and the board had been exoner-ated, a new board was elected. An-

gela Meder, who has been on theboard for 12 years, was re-elected, inaddition to new board members SylviaWladarz and Rolf Brunner. Rolf Brun-ner will also continue as treasurer.

Overall, there were many useful dis-cussions. The new ideas will help todirect the future planning and targetingof the Berggorilla & Regenwald Direkt-hilfe. People had the opportunity tomeet the board, other active membersand various guests, who had manyinteresting things to say. We had twoinformative days.

Kerstin Hirschegger andDenise Nierentz


Iris Weiche's report of her trip toUganda. At the right: SylviaWladarz and Andreas Fretz

Photo: Angela Meder

20th Anniversary of theBerggorilla & RegenwaldDirekthilfe e. V.In 1983, Paul-Hermann Bürgel, a greatanimal lover, spent his holidays onone of his world trips. This time hecrossed Africa from north to south. Hemet a colleague of Dian Fossey’s inRwanda who told him about the prob-lems of gorilla conservation. At thattime, the survival of the mountain goril-las had not yet been ensured and onlya few organizations were working onbehalf of these animals. P.-H. Bürgelpromised to help once he was back inGermany.

Then, however, he encounteredproblems. Bernhard Grzimek, the di-rector of the Frankfurt Zoological So-ciety, was willing to listen to him, butthen told him about all the projectsthat his organization was already run-ning. He did not commit himself toanything: "We’ll have to see," he said.That is when P.-H. Bürgel decided tobecome actively involved himself. Hewas an opponent of typical "societies"and only wanted to form an actiongroup. But when it turned out to beimpossible to generate support in Ger-many – financial or otherwise – for anaction group, he found that he had toestablish a society after all.

P.-H. Bürgel talked to his friends,they talked to their friends, and so on.Finally, seven people met in Voerde, asmall town on the Lower Rhine, inHartmut Golomb’s sitting room onJune 2, 1984. For lunch we had cur-ried sausages and French fries, beerand wine. This was the meeting wherethe Berggorilla Patenschaft ("moun-tain gorilla sponsorship society") wasfounded by Paul-Hermann Bürgel,Manfred Hartwig, Rolf Brunner, Hart-mut Golomb, Gabriela Ernst, AdelheidKuningas and Claudia Wallraven.

The society’s headquarters were tobe located in the castle in Burg-preppach in Upper Franconia, where



P.-H. Bürgel lived, and he was electedchairman. We started to make ourway through the obligatory paperwork:we had to see a notary, open bankaccounts, etc.

WWF Belgium was well repre-sented in Rwanda and we made con-tact with the Mountain Gorilla Project/Projet Gorille de Montagne. We alsoestablished first contacts with GTZwho had already started to work in theKahuzi-Biega National Park.

Targeting Germany, we promotedthe conservation of the mountain goril-las and tried to spread informationabout these animals and the threatsfacing them. The film Gorillas in theMist helped, of course. We collecteddonations, bought the first used equip-ment from army surplus stores andtransported the equipment to WWF inBrussels ourselves. It was still a verysmall-scale operation.

After P.-H. Bürgel had withdrawnfrom the society, the headquarterswere moved to Mülheim and the namewas changed to Berggorilla & Regen-wald Direkthilfe (Mountain Gorilla andRainforest Direct Aid). The change inname was necessary because of theinternational scope of the society’s

A meeting in 1988: Manfred Hartwig, Rolf Brunner and Paul-HermannBürgel Photo: Angela Meder

work: "Patenschaft" does not trans-late easily into English or French.Apart from that, the name is intendedto indicate that gorilla conservation isimpossible without the conservation ofthe gorillas' habitat and that the soci-ety wants to help directly without thehandicap of a large administrative ap-paratus.

Rolf Brunner

Electronic GorillaJournalYou can download the latest Go-rilla Journal in PDF format fromour website (www.berggorilla.de)– in English, French and Ger-man. Just click on "Gorilla Jour-nal" in the upper menu. If youprefer to download the journalfrom the internet instead of re-ceiving a printed copy, pleaseinform us at [email protected]. We will notifyyou by email as soon as thejournal is available on our web-site. You will then be able toread it before it is printed.



FinancesIncome in 2003Subscriptions 13,886.63Donations 30,441.48Refund from travel 921.61Refund from meeting 544.00Sales 898.66Total Euro 46,692.38

Expenditure in 2003Administration 990.74Gorilla Journal 6,115.08Subscriptions 220.11Items for sale 913.29Postage 1,853.78Pay/top-ups 1,900.00Office supplies Uganda 120.00Kisoro Office Rent 733.00Kahuzi-Biega Nat. ParkEquipment 4,571.37Public awareness 1,112.99Lwiro orphanageFood and nursing 340.00Virunga National ParkDialogue committees 4,076.45Travel expenses CADAK 25.00SarambweBicycles 198.00UGADECRanger equipment 5,627.01Radio equipment 5,504.70International cooperationVirunga gorilla census 2,726.07Mgahinga Gorilla Nat. ParkRadio equipment 1,945.00

DAS AIR CARGOYour All Cargo Airline

Serving Directly from Amsterdam, London and Oostende

ACCRA DUBAI JOHANNESBURG LUSAKABAHRAIN ENTEBBE KANO MUMBAIBUJUMBURA FREETOWN KIGALI NAIROBI European Headquarters: London-GatwickDAR ES SALAAM HARARE LAGOS PORT HARCOURT Tel: (44) 1293 643501 Fax: (44) 1293 551545

Email: [email protected]

Contact: AMS +31 20 4058666 DXB +971 4 2826696 EBB +256 41 320085 NBO +254 2 822905 MCO +407 2407787 CDG +33 1 48166161

Michel HassonNouvelles Approches a.s.b.l.Rue E. Branly, 9 Boîte 351190 Bruxelles, BelgiumFax : (00322) 732 27 [email protected]://www.nouvellesapproches.orgN° identification nationale:10281/97

We are very grateful to Nouvelles Approches for thetranslation of the Gorilla Journal to French again!

Nouvelles Approches, a Belgian based NGO, works tosafeguard the national parks of the Democratic Repub-lic of Congo. We are the only NGO currently active inUpemba and Kundelungu National Parks of Katanga Prov-ince and we collaborate with the GTZ in Kahuzi-Biega National Park.

The fact that almost every memberof our Board of Trustees has lived or isstill resident in the D. R. Congo, is anasset that gives us good knowledge ofthe country. We maintain permanentcontacts in Bukavu, Lubumbashi, andKinshasa. We keep excellent relation-ships with the ICCN and all nationaland international organizations involv-ed in conservation in Central Africa.

Bwindi Impen. Nat. ParkRanger outpost renov. 3,000.00Project ManagementEquipment for storage 2,409.90Travel expenses 1,583.42Expenses 1,745.00Repairs of vehicle 532.03Total Euro 48,354.77

We thank everybody who supportedus from November 2003 to April 2004.Major contributions and donationswere received from Horst Engel, Ma-rianne Famula, Stefan Faust, Peter

Günther, Peter Haug, HundelebenGmbH, Hartmann Knorr, ReinholdKünstle, Dr. Lore Marholdt, Dr. KurtNiemeyer, Brunhilde Präckel, Alexan-dra Ruoff, Holger Schickor, PeterSchmitz, Silke Schröder, Ralf Stein,Dr. Juliana Stroebele-Gregor, AnkeVolpe, Sylvia Wahner, Karl-Otto We-ber, Bärbel Winkler and ElisabethZaruba. We are very grateful for thehelp of these persons and of all theother supporters whom we could notname here!

Mgahinga Safari Lodge is a luxury lodge, perched at the tip of a peninsula juttinginto the waters of Lake Mutanda, in southwestern Uganda. The lodge is the ideal settingfrom which to track the mountain gorilla in nearby Mgahinga Gorilla National Park orduring a day trip to Rwanda or Congo.All our visitors have seen the mountain gorillas!Africa Adventure Touristik will be pleased to design individual safari tours to themountain gorillas, all over Uganda and neighbouring countries. We offer our servicesall-in-one, design of tours and reservation/booking in Germany, transportation inUganda and neighbouring countries, mainly with own guides/drivers and own cars,operating Mgahinga Safari Lodge, situated right in the middle of all national parkswhere mountain gorillas are living. We offer tours to the mountain gorillas andchimpanzees, already designed and often tested. Please have a look at our websiteand/or contact us.

For further information contact:

AFRICA ADVENTURE TOURISTIKKurt NiedermeierSeeshaupter Str. 17D-81476 Munich/GermanyPhone: +49-89 759 79 626Fax: +49-89-759-79-627

E-mail: [email protected]@t-online.de

http://www.aat-gorilla.com

Subscription to the Gorilla JournalIf you become a member, you will receive the journal regularly. If you want to receive the printed journal withoutbecoming a member, we would be grateful if you could make a donation to cover our costs. The costs to send thejournal overseas are abut US$ 20.

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Gorilla Journal...gorillas, among others). She also visited gorillas in Africa – the mountain gorillas and the Limbe orphanage. Carlos Schuler first worked as a typographer, then