Arthur Mugisha
9 April 2008
opinion
Kampala — I write in reference to the article in The New Vision of April 7, 2008, by Gerald Tenwya titled "feud over gorilla permit". The article quotes the Minister of State for Tourism Trade and Industry, Serapio Rukundo, saying that 'you cannot have all people complaining and think that the investment is going to be secure'.
The people who are complaining are those that have tourist facilities in Kisoro and those who are involved in the tourism industry. They are complaining about the sale of gorilla permits, simply because they would like to make more money for themselves from these permits. These do not add up to 'all the people' as the minister would like us to believe.
The Nkuringo issue is not about sale of gorilla permits. It is about sustainably managing the Nkuringo gorilla groups. Gorillas are members of the great apes, so they belong to the same family as we human beings and they are referred to as non-human apes. We share more than 95% of our genes with them and they are next to us in intelligence.
All would be nice and good for these apes if it was not for conflicts between us human beings and themselves. The main cause of this conflict is the threat to the 'home' or habitat of these apes. The only remaining home for these apes in the world are the thick forests of Bwindi and Mgahinga in Uganda, Volcanos and the Mikeno sector of Virunga national parks in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, respectively.
These forests are needed for food production for human population, hence the conflicts between humans and apes. Research predicts that by 2030 more than 90% of African great ape habitat would suffer moderate to high impact from human action.
The challenge that UWA has had to address as the body responsible for wildlife in Uganda is to secure the homes of these apes and manage their population amidst these intense human-apes conflict. For Nkuringo, the situation was worsened when the group that formerly lived in the park got used to human presence in a bid to introduce tourism in 1997, it changed its home range to come and live on community land that belonged to the people of Nkuringo.
This intensified the conflict resulting in diseases transmission between local people, livestock and gorillas. The socio lifestyle of people was greatly negatively impacted as their movements were restricted and they could not grow food crops for their consumption and UWA was challenged to address the concerns of the apes and the local people of Nkuringo.
To address the challenges mentioned above, a number of options to address the human-gorilla conflict and secure the survival of these apes and the local people were carefully considered based on long-term studies, debated and consultations made at different levels including the district administration of Kisoro.
An eco-lodge designed to attract high-end international clientele, directly benefiting those whose gardens are raided by gorillas was one of the approaches among others that was agreed upon to increase the tolerance of the local people to these intelligent apes that cannot be controlled using other means such as translocation or shooting that can be applied to other animals like elephants and bush pigs.
Therefore, the current 'feud' about the sale of gorilla permits is being debated in a wrong context. The feud is wrongly targeting an individual in the names of Jonathan Wright, using racial sentiments of 'mzungu' monopolising the gorilla permits. This is a conspiracy against the 'voiceless' often 'invisible' poor rural people, while at the same time ignoring the real issue which is the management of gorilla in a conflict situation.
The conflict is between the local communities around Bwindi (people in Rubuguri and Nteko parishes) and the Nkuringo group of mountain gorillas. The minister and fellow Ugandans, this is the conflict that the gorilla will surely loose unless you can be able to listen and hear these rural poor people.
The eco-lodge is designed to be owned and directly benefit the people whose gardens are being raided. The permits are assigned to those who sleep in the lodge to increase the benefits for these poor people. For every guest that spends a night in the lodge, the community is entitled to $30 (sh15,000). The employment policy of the eco-lodge is to give local people the first priority.
Those who will be working in the lodge will have no time to cultivate land and hence the conflict with gorillas will reduce. The $5,000 (sh8.5m) annual ground rent will assist the communities to come up with more enterprising projects to get rid of poverty without conflict with gorillas through tilling the land for a survival.
This is what Nkuringo Conservation and Development Foundation is all about. It is a concept that could be applied in other situations to address human-wildlife conflicts. Give it a chance.
The writer works with Flora and Fauna International
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