Rwanda: where there are baby gorillas to name

Agasha, a 400-pound mountain gorilla, chewing his breakfast in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park. (Jon Rosen/GlobalPost)

KINIGI, Rwanda — What do you name a baby gorilla?

It’s a Saturday morning at the headquarters of Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park and thousands of people have gathered for what’s become a celebrated national pastime: the naming of baby mountain gorillas.

In a country home to roughly a third of the world’s 700 remaining mountain gorillas, the annual event, known as “Kwita Izina,”  is a celebrity-laden affair designed to draw attention to global awareness of biodiversity and conservation.

This year the sixth annual baby naming event was held on June 5 and featured performances by traditional dancers and pop artists. Featured guests, including “Hotel Rwanda” star Don Cheadle and United Nations Environmental Program Executive Director Achim Steiner, name 14 infant gorillas, bestowing Kinyarwanda-language monikers such as "Igihembo" (Prize), "Ubuhamya" (Testimony) and "Umurage" (Legacy).

The overwhelming crowd favorite, foreshadowing the popularity of Shakira’s World Cup anthem, is the name announced by acclaimed Chinese wildlife photographer Luo Hong: “Waka Waka,” or “Do It” in Cameroon’s Fang language.

All this must be a curious spectacle to Agasha, a 400-pound mountain gorilla, who sits a few miles away inside a rain-soaked forest, munching on a breakfast of bamboo, thistles and wild celery.

As the lone adult male — or silverback — among a group of some two-dozen primates, Agasha is used to humans — though in much smaller numbers. For an hour each day he puts up with the stares and snapping cameras of a group of up to eight tourists, who pay $500 each to pry into his mountainside existence. To Agasha, they may be a nuisance. Yet, like the participants of the “Kwita Izina” ceremony, they also play a crucial role in his survival.

Gorillas, faced with poaching and loss of habitat, have declined substantially in number over the last two decades and may disappear within 10 to 15 years from most of their present range in central Africa, according to a recent report by the U.N. Environmental Program.

Mountain gorillas like Agasha, however, may yet avoid that cruel fate. Numbering just 700, split between distinct populations in the Virunga Mountains and Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, they make up less than 1 percent of the world’s gorilla population. Yet they are the only one of the four gorilla sub-species whose numbers are not declining, according to the report.

In the Virunga Mountains, a range shared by Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, their population increased from 250 in 1981 to 380 in 2003, the time of the last gorilla census. A new census is to be released this year, and experts predict a further rise.

“We still have a very small number in total,” said Antoine Mudakikwa, a veterinarian with the Rwanda Development Board. “But we continue to see an increased number of mountain gorillas in the Virungas.”

In Rwanda, home to more than half of the Virunga primates, this success has been achieved through effective anti-poaching patrols as well as a government-led approach that integrates tourism and conservation.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/africa/100625/rwanda-gorilla-conservation-0