By JOHNSON KANAMUGIRE

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More than 3,000 families in the three districts bordering the Volcanoes National Park will be relocated as officials expedite plans to secure additional habitat for the mountain gorillas whose numbers have been on the rise.

As of 2019, Dian Fossey Gorilla Conservation Fund estimated that the population of gorillas in Rwanda had increased to 459, from 400 at the last census. The overall total of mountain gorillas was estimated at 1,063 in the Virunga mountain range of Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo.

“Given the social economic impact of moving such a number of families, we will first ensure that funds are raised and relocation plans for homes and economic activities before we implement the project...” Clare Akamanzi, Rwanda Development Board chief executive officer, told Rwanda Today.

With the Park now hosting the largest mountain gorilla population in the Virunga massif, their growth continues to pose a serious space issue, sparking concerns that the available habitat is no longer enough to sustain their numbers for now and in the near future.

Assessments by African Wildlife Foundation suggest that at least 3,700 hectares of additional land is needed to expand the habitat and the buffer zone of the Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda if the country is to effectively address risks of human-gorilla conflict, infanticide cases and disease transmission resulting from human-wildlife interaction and closeness of gorilla families.

Rwanda Today learnt, however, that government and partners were still mulling possible ways to fund costs of different components under the expansion project before they can move on to set exact timelines.

Rwanda so far secured 27-hectare land given as a donation by African Wildlife Foundation, while negotiations were ongoing to secure additional 150 hectares for the overall Park expansion process to kick off in pilot phase.

However, its start is still subject to completion of costing and budgeting of land acquisition, and investments that are needed to cater for livelihoods of the communities around the area, Rwanda Today has learnt.

“We are working through the specific figures not just from the land acquisition point of view but also from an investment point of view and livelihoods point of view. The reason we need to be careful is that we need to understand what kind of investments are needed for the livelihood component of things,” said Andrea Athanas, program design manager at African Wildlife Foundation.

“Engaging the people in their own self determination of their future is part of the process of designing what will happen,” she said, adding that such engagements were critical in the context of Covid-19 where the tourism model as a way of sustaining the financing for conservation is increasingly becoming fragile.

According to experts, the areas that is conserved must be large enough to support wildlife all year round, and this may not be the case for the gorillas considering their current growth rate.

Particularly, conservationists in the region indicate that there has been a growing trend of infanticide among the gorillas as their families come closer to one another, resulting in competition between the dominant males.

AWF indicates that the planned expansion of the gorilla habitat in Rwanda is part of the bigger picture in view of the transboundary nature of the landscape where there is possibility of mobility in the gorilla population across neighboring Uganda and DR Congo.

Besides, the changing weather patterns were having growing impact on the species, requiring conservationists to watch out for even more frequent mobility going forward as suitability of habitat change.