Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Maria Mutagamba, has signed a regional agreement to promote gorilla conservation in Uganda, Rwanda, and DR Congo. The three countries share the only remaining population of mountain gorillas estimated at 880 globally. The regional agreement will also help to promote research and tourism as well as sharing of revenue where gorillas cross from one country to another.
The Congolese government has allocated $100,000, which is a mandatory contribution from each of the three countries to implement the agreement. “We should make this self-sustaining through gorilla tourism,” said Mutagamba, adding that the countries need to increase the visibility of gorillas and that this could be done through the “Virunga Day” so that gorillas are known internationally.
Commenting on the impact of the insecurity on conservation of the gorillas in eastern DR Congo, he said, “The cooperation will help us to face the challenges. The security situation does not allow us to work the way we would have wanted, but the treaty is going to help us to illegal trade.” He cited timber as part of the illegal trade that is undermining the forest landscape which is an important habitat for the gorillas.
The agreement concludes about two decades of networking spearheaded by the wildlife and conservation agencies in the three countries. In recent years, the countries decided to take the collaboration to a higher level by creating the Greater Virunga Trans-boundary Agreement. The Council of Ministers meeting on September 22 where the Ministers of Rwanda and DR Congo signed the agreement was preceded by the meeting of the experts of the three state parties to the Treaty held on September 21, 2015 which was chaired by the Director General of Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature. The experts reviewed the agreement which was adopted and signed.
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Posted by: PollyKamugisha | 01/18/2016 at 07:22 AM