Significant Expansion and More Chimpanzees Seen in Rwanda's 'Forest of Hope'

(Des Moines, Iowa – March 16, 2011) – It began three years ago as one of the most ambitious conservation initiatives in Africa. Today, a unique forest restoration and chimpanzee conservation program in Rwanda is transforming an area once considered beyond hope into the Forest of Hope.

It is a story that began in late 2007, when the President of Rwanda, His Excellency Paul Kagame, and Great Ape Trust Founder and Chair Ted Townsend of Des Moines, Iowa, pledged at the Clinton Global Initiative conference to create a “national conservation park” in Rwanda to benefit climate, biodiversity and the welfare of the Rwandan people. In early 2008, the Gishwati Forest Reserve in western Rwanda, disregarded for years by international conservation organizations, was chosen as the site of the future park – and the Gishwati Area Conservation Program (GACP) began.

In 2010, the Rwandan Ministry of Lands and Environment entered into a Memorandum of Understanding granting GACP responsibility for managing the protected forest while endorsing the most challenging element of the project – a 30 mile-long forest corridor connecting Gishwati to Nyungwe National Park.

Today, through demarcation of legal boundaries and the annexation of illegally occupied land, the protected area of Gishwati has increased an impressive 67 percent from 2,190 to 3,665 acres.

“This expansion of the Gishwati Forest is a significant step in turning around decades of deforestation and is the initial stage in creating the forest corridor to Nyungwe,” said Dr. Benjamin Beck, director of conservation at Great Ape Trust. “Such success wouldn’t have been possible without the commitment of the Rwandan government and the people who live near the forest.  We all understand the value of Gishwati and the need to preserve it.”

Success in Gishwati goes well beyond increased acreage and forest size.  A small population of East African chimpanzees, once teetering on the brink of extinction, has grown 46 percent from 13 to 19 apes – likely the first time the Gishwati chimpanzee population has increased in more than 40 years. Dr. Rebecca Chancellor is the principal investigator for the chimpanzee research site supported by GACP.  For more than two years she and her Rwandan team have studied the Gishwati chimpanzees.

It’s been exciting to discover there are more chimpanzees living in the Gishwati Forest than we thought,” said Chancellor. “At least one and possibly up to three infants have been born since the start of our study in 2008. This is an extremely positive sign that the Gishwati chimpanzee population is healthy and growing.”

The chimpanzee population in Gishwati consists of six adult males, five adult females, two adolescent females, one adolescent male, one juvenile male and four infants.  Photos and short biographies about each ape are featured in a Meet The Chimpanzees section of the Great Ape Trust Web site.

The Gishwati Forest Reserve’s history of deforestation extended over many decades.  A forest that covered about 70,000 acres in 1930, was nearly depleted because of ill-advised large-scale cattle ranching projects, resettlement of refugees after the 1994 genocide, inefficient small-plot farming and the establishment of plantations of non-native trees.  As a result, the area has been plagued with catastrophic flooding, erosion, landslides, decreased soil fertility, decreased water quality and heavy river siltation – all of which aggravate a cycle of poverty.

Today, GACP provides secure and meaningful employment to 26 Rwandans, and is an economic engine in the communities surrounding Gishwati. People have ceased illegal activities in the core of the forest. Students and working adults in 14 schools and 10 cooperatives as well as officials of the Rutsiro District government are partnering with GACP to help restore Gishwati. Staff training programs, collaborations with cooperatives, and hosting students from Rwanda National University to conduct senior theses have already contributed to local and national capacity building; an emerging collaboration with Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa will provide new opportunities for academic exchanges for Rwandan students and scientists.  Two graduate students from the United Kingdom have completed master’s theses in Gishwati, and student groups from Iowa State University and Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa have made work-study visits.

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