Bill Weber, senior conservationist with the Wildlife Conservation Society and co?founder of the Mountain Gorilla Project in Rwanda, last night discussed the lessons he has learned through his work preserving gorilla habitats in Central Africa.
Weber's presentation, titled "Gorillas and Elephants, People and Parks: Lessons in Conservation and Conflict from Central Africa," was held in the Cabot Intercultural Center. The event was sponsored by the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy's (CIERP) Agriculture, Forests, and Biodiversity Program at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
Weber's work in international conservation primarily focuses on the human aspects of conservation.
According to Adjunct Assistant Professor of International Environmental Policy Charles Chester, who organized the event, Weber has the unique ability to understand and clearly explain the tension between human needs and conserving biodiversity.
"Bill combines a passion for wildlife with an understanding of what it takes to ensure that wildlife can survive in areas where the human need and right to basic resources is intense," Chester said. "There are too few individuals who can speak on how to resolve this tension, and Bill Weber is one of those precious few."
Weber told the audience the story of the founding of Mountain Gorilla Project, which he created with his wife, biologist and gorilla expert Amy Vedder, in the late 1970s. Throughout his talk, Weber highlighted the many lessons he learned from the challenges and successes he experienced in creating and developing the project.
The Mountain Gorilla Project is an eco?tourism venture designed to attract visitors to visit free?ranging mountain gorillas in order to financially support the preservation of gorilla habitats. The project also works to raise awareness among Rwandans of the importance of animal conservation.
In its early days, the project successfully increased rates of tourism in Rwanda and generated strong community awareness of and support for national parks and conservation land, Weber explained.
"Things were looking very good with an increase in gorilla populations and two?thirds of the local residents supporting the continued maintenance of the national park for watershed values and other community and national benefits from tourism," Weber said. "Things looked great in Rwanda with our multidisciplinary approach with Amy as a biologist and myself as more of a social scientist looking at the people's side of things, and money coming into the system and the national parks having political and public support."
During the 1994 Rwandan genocide, however, much of the country's national park lands were razed and the project witnessed disastrous loss, Weber said. Ten years later, Weber returned with the support of locals to help rebuild the national parks. Upon his arrival, he saw a country experiencing great new economic growth.
"The sleepy city of Kigali in Rwanda changed into a city of hotels, universities and the center for national genocide," Weber said. "Rwanda just came back as this amazing phoenix."
The young generation of Rwandans post?genocide provided strong public support for the national parks, viewing ecotourism as a viable means of generating the funds necessary to grow public schools and medical clinics throughout the country.
Community involvement was a central focus of the Mountain Gorilla Project, which strived to implement its programs without impacting the lands of the local people, Weber explained. The organization used rudimentary GIS systems in the form of charcoal?drawn maps and hosted community talks in an effort to work hand?in?hand with community members to create park boundaries and design the overall structure of national parks.
Ultimately, he noted, the rebuilding of the nation's national parks increased not only the gorilla population, but also the populations of other animals, including elephants, helping to increase the national parks' overall biodiversity.
