Dian fossey gorilla fund shop11/6/2023 ![]() We know that saving gorillas isn’t enough. Pillar Four: Helping communities living near gorillas through livelihood, food security and education initiatives. We are proud that many of our former students now work in conservation organizations throughout the region, including at the Fossey Fund. Each year we train hundreds of university students in Rwanda and the DRC, provide educational scholarships to our staff, and offer internships to early career scientists to further their skills. Long-term conservation depends upon equipping the next generation of leaders in Africa and beyond with the skills and knowledge they need to protect their forests in the future. Pillar Three: Training future leaders to address the conservation challenges of the future. Our studies focus not only on gorilla behavior and conservation but also on monitoring the biodiversity of the forests where gorillas live to ensure the health of their overall ecosystem. As the world’s longest running gorilla research center, we have contributed enormously to what is known about gorillas. Good conservation is underscored by good science. Pillar Two: Conducting critical science needed to develop conservation strategies. In 2020 we are proud to say that, thanks to their hard work, we were able to destroy 2,200 snares in DRC alone - and zero gorillas from the groups we monitor were injured by them. They also search the forest for snares left by poachers, which can injure or even kill gorillas. Our trackers hike for hours in the forest to check on the gorillas we monitor, ensuring they are all healthy and accounted for. We have boots on the ground 365 days a year in the forests of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to protect these endangered animals. Their cousin the Grauer’s gorilla is in an even more precarious position, as their population has dropped an estimated 80% in the past two decades. There are just over 1,000 mountain gorillas left in the world, and while their numbers are slowly increasing, they are still dependent on our daily intensive conservation activities. First and foremost, we are dedicated to the protection of individual gorillas and their families. Pillar One: Protecting individual gorillas and their families. ![]() To understand what we plan to do with this generosity, it helps to understand the four pillars underpinning our people-centered approach to conservation. As we often say: when you save gorillas, you save the planet. The WallStreetBets donations will be used not only to protect gorillas, but to protect their forest home, which is the second largest tropical rainforest on the planet and one of our best natural defenses against climate change. This pandemic, which scientists agree likely began when a zoonotic disease “jumped” from wild animals to humans, made it clear that, while it is expensive to protect and maintain pristine forests, there is a greater cost to letting these forests be damaged. The onset of the pandemic in 2020 made our work in the forests of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo more difficult, more costly - and more critical to the survival of gorillas and the humans who live nearby. ![]() We were surprised and honored by this sudden flood of generosity. Last week the Reddit investor group WallStreetBets started a viral, grassroots campaign to adopt gorillas in support of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, and we received thousands of donations, mostly through our gorilla adoption program. It’s been a wild ride for those of us who love gorillas.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |