Rwanda
Survival strategies for humans and gorillas in Rwanda

afrol News / WWF, 29 November - In Rwanda, working to conserve nature - including the endangered mountain gorilla - is a risky business for which Eugene Rutagarama risked his life several times and endured a prison sentence. Recently awarded a Goldman Environmental Award for his efforts, Rutagarama, also known affectionately as "Mr Gorilla", continues to work to save these rare animals and their habitat.

He is among hundreds of thousands of people who paid the price when the proverbial elephants fought. On 1 October 1990, the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) invaded Akagera National Park in Eastern Rwanda forcing government and conservation organizations to suspend all their activities. Two days later, Eugene Rutagarama, his fellow Park employees and hundreds of innocent civilians working in, or living around the Park were arrested and imprisoned.

Rutagarama, then an employee of Rwanda's Office of Tourism and National Parks (ORTPN), was doing research on bamboo. His colourful little signs demarcating his sampling plots were perceived as a road map guiding rebels to their various destinations. For that, he found himself in prison.

- It is very difficult to survive in prison when you are innocent. Much more so when charged with treason at a time when the Government was very extremist in the punishment it meted out for such crimes, Rutagarama says. "You must have a strategy to survive."

While in prison, he resolved to focus on living each day to the fullest. For most of the inmates, it was the end of the road. Gloom and doom weighed heavily in the air, heightened by a daily dose of uninspiring prayers ministered by an incessantly droning Catholic priest. Inmates were shrinking by the day from despair, small food rations and general disinterest in life, according to Rutagarama, who is now Programme Manager for the International Gorilla Conservation Programme (IGCP) in Nairobi. 

He took it upon himself to put a stop to the wastage of life by engaging his fellow prisoners in a variety of activities. First, he relieved the priest of prayer duty, and asked each inmate to lead the daily evening prayers. He organized card game competitions and talked passionately about conserving the endangered mountain gorillas, for which he later came to be fondly called "Mr Gorilla".

- Most Rwandans don't know or understand why anyone would want to work with gorillas, he says. "I was concerned by the rate of disappearance of gorillas. I chose them because they are very different from all other animals; they are between people and animals!" His upbeat manner and sparkling eyes bespeak nothing of a persecuted past, but an unbreakable spirit.

There are only 655 mountains gorillas left in the wild today, all of them found in two parks located in north western Rwanda, south west Uganda and eastern Congo. The International Gorilla Conservation Programme, a collaborative initiative of WWF, the African Wildlife Fund (AWF) and Flora and Fauna International (FFI), is striving to bring these highly endangered human relatives back from the precipice of extinction.

On January 23, 1991, Eugene and his fellow inmates' prayers were answered when the RPF broke them out of jail. He immediately fled his country, a second time. He first went into exile in neighbouring Burundi in 1973 where he did his secondary schooling and later joined the University of Burundi, where he studied biology. He was repatriated in 1985 and landed a dream job with ORPTN. When he returned home the second time in 1994, he again rejoined the ORPTN as Deputy Director.

- I always knew I would return home and work in conservation, Rutagarama says, explaining his childhood passion for the environment began during primary school visits to Rwanda's national parks.

In 1994, he found a seriously dilapidated ORPTN. Only 10 percent of the staff were left. The rest had either been killed, or had fled during the insurgency. The field offices had been completely ransacked and park infrastructure seriously devastated.

- The first thing I did was restart operations by rebuilding the infrastructure and re-equipping offices. It was urgent to make our presence felt in the field to show people that we still existed in order to stop wanton destruction of forests," Rutagarama says.

As calm returned to Rwanda, his biggest challenge was to sensitize and deter the Government from carrying out its plan to resettle hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons and refugees in important conservation areas. He successfully lobbied his Government to develop a strategic management plan for habitats of the endangered mountain gorillas.

Rutagarama soon returned to fieldwork at Nyungwe Forest in Southwest Rwanda. "I was able to do something there," he says. He was constantly faced with a cat-and-mouse chase of militia and rebel soldiers in the forest in order to visit staff and safely deliver supplies and salaries.

This selfless commitment to the people he worked with to safeguard nature is what earned Eugene Rutagarama the coveted Goldman Environmental Award, worth $125,000. "All my achievements so far are due to teamwork. I am convinced that I received this award on behalf of people I worked with and organisations I worked for." 

- The lesson, says Rutagarama, "is to have an ideal and stay committed to it. We endured months without salaries, but I was convinced conservation was my life. The trick is not to be side-tracked by politics and prejudices." 

His greatest challenge is how to truly make the so-called community involvement and participation effective and meaningful to them. "Although I know we are working for their long-term benefit, what about their day-to-day survival? Are they victims of what we are doing today?" He therefore plans to spend" a big percentage" of his award on community-driven projects around Virunga National Park and Nyungwe Forest in his home country Rwanda.

By Catherine Mgendi; 
Communications Officer for WWF's Eastern Africa Regional Programme Office

© Catherine Mgendi / WWF.    You can contact us at mail@afrol.com