The tropical rain forest

Within the last few years three key concerns have come to dominate the conservation-poverty debate: (1) the activities and accountability of big international conserva- tion NGOs, and their impacts on local communities; (2) the increasingly protectionist focus of conservation policy and the implications for communities resident in and around protected areas, in particular regarding involuntary displacements and evictions; (3) the lack of attention to biodiversity conservation on the development agenda, with the current focus on poverty reduction. The roots of these different strands of the debate lie in much older discussions of the links between environment and development. There have been periods of convergence, especially around issues of sustainable development, participation and decentral- ization during the 1980s and 1990s. There have also been periods of divergence, in particular the disenchantment with community-based approaches to conservation and the prioritization of poverty over environment, during the 1990s and 2000s. Reactions to the outcomes of the 2003 World Parks Congress brought the three strands of the modern debate to a head. Ongoing discussions around these strands continue at a different pace but the debate appears to be moving fastest on biodiversity's place within the development agenda, although concerns over biodiversity remain marginal compared to the current focus on climate change. But it is within the climate change agenda, and particularly the escalation of discussions around reduced emissions from deforestation, that the next formulations of the conservation-poverty debate are likely to develop.

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The origins and evolution of the conservation-poverty debate: a review of key literature, events and policy processes

Population dynamics of the virunga gorillas: 1959–1978

Data on population size, density and composition, biomass, group size and composition and reproductive rates are compared between populations in the two regions of gorilla



distribution, equatorial west and east central Africa. The Virunga Volcano population of the latter region is shown to be a good model for all populations. Information on age at maturity, birth rates, mortality rates of adults and immatures and migration of individuals within the population is presented but data are available only for the Virunga population. The significance of a knowledge of the pattern of migration of individuals to the genetic consequences of large reduction in population size is stressed.

Demography of Gorilla gorilla

This article presents the results of a telephone survey of U.S.-based, nature-oriented tour operators. Emphasis is placed on the types of activities , destinations, clientele, limitations to growth, and potential benefits for development.

Nature-Oriented Tour Operators: Travel To Developing Countries

The new African conservation convention, drawn up by IUCN and signed by the African heads of state in September 1968, is now in force. Kai Curry-Lindahl, who has been involved in its rather chequered history, tells here the story of how two conventions, differing in scope, came to be drawn up and how the matter has been resolved.

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The New African Conservation Convention

Over the last twenty years, the population of Mountain Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla beringei) in the Virunga Volcanoes region of Rwanda, Uganda, and Zaire, has halved from an estimated 400–500 to fewer than 250. The major cause of this decline is loss of habitat through large-scale appropriation of National Park land in Rwanda for agriculture, and through encroachment by local people and their cattle which causes extensive damage to vegetation within the protected area.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0376892900002666

Conservation of the Mountain Gorilla and its Habitat in Rwanda

An isolated mountain range, 40 kilometres long, in the rain forest of tropical West Africa, Mount Nimba lies at the meeting point of three countries: Liberia, Guinea and the Ivory Coast, the last two both former French territories. In 1942 the French initiated ecological research on their parts of the mountain, discovered its extraordinary interest and the very high number of endemic species, and declared a strict nature reserve. Of the Liberian part nothing was known until the discovery of high-grade iron ore in 1955, and the immediate formation of a company to mine it, led the International Union for Conservation of Nature to start an ecological study there. The authors of this report are respectively the first Director of the research unit which, aided by a grant from the mining company, began work in August 1964, and the chairman of the IUCN Mount Nimba Committee.

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Ecology of a Mountain: First Report on Liberian Nimba

In February 1978 the story broke in Europe and America of the killing of Digit, a wild mountain gorilla known by millions outside Rwanda through his appearance on television with Dr Dian Fossey, the American zoologist who has been studying gorillas in the Virunga Volcanoes for eleven years. FPS immediately set up an appeal for funds, to protect the gorillas. This was promoted by the Sunday Times and collected nearly £8000, some from school conservation clubs sending all their savings. Encouraged by this splendid response FPS decided to launch a major Mountain Gorilla Project to help Rwanda to guard the gorillas and the Parc National des Volcans. The goal is £50,000.But before this could be launched, FPS, working in close association with WWF, needed up-to-date information on the situation in Rwanda and decided to send a small mission to report. The members were Professor Kai Curry-Lindahl, FPS Vice President, world-renowned scientist and conservationist who has worked in the Virungas at intervals since 1952 and knows the problems, especially on the Zaire side; Dr A.H. Harcourt, Coordinator of the Mountain Gorilla Project, who studied gorillas for two years in the Virungas and knew Digit well, and Brian Jackman, whose story in the Sunday Times on the death of Digit was mainly responsible for the money so far donated. They arrived in Rwanda in early August to be greeted with the news that two more gorillas of Dian Fossey's study groups, including “Uncle Bert”, had been killed. They spent a week on their mission, and extracts from their report to FPS are printed below. Since Sabena Airlines very generously backed the mission, travel expenses were minimal and none came out of the Mountain Gorilla Fund. The following are extracts from the Mission's report.

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Kai Curry-Lindahl

Papers

The New African Conservation Convention

Conservation of the Mountain Gorilla and its Habitat in Rwanda

Ecology of a Mountain: First Report on Liberian Nimba

The FPS Mountain Gorilla Project—a Report from Rwanda

Background and development of international conservation organizations and their role in the future.