with close to a million species now threatened with extinction it's not often you hear about
a conservation success story but the mountain gorillas of the east african nation of rwanda
are just that when american naturalist dianne fosse moved to rwanda half a century ago to study
mountain gorillas their numbers were dwindling down to just 254 individuals but today they're up
to over 600 with another 400 in neighboring uganda the only great ape whose numbers are actually
on the rise how they've done it a joint effort by scientists and government to save guerrillas
and help the human communities around them with a key role played by tourists
the story will continue in a moment
these are the varunga volcanoes home to most of the world's mountain gorillas diane fosse aptly
called them gorillas in the mist but when the mist lifts they are gorillas in the sun
doing what mountain gorillas do eat rest
eat some more and snuggle when you look in the eyes of a gorilla you see a kindred
spirit looking back at you they are so much like us they have friends they have enemies
they love to play they love to eat they love to nap they are incredible moms and incredible dads
so we're going to pull this one out primatologist tara stowinski heads the dian fosse gorilla fund a
non-profit research and conservation organization that grew out of fosse's work how many years did
she live up here alone she was in the forest for 18 years fosse was sent to rwanda in 1967
by famed anthropologist louis leakey who had also sent jane goodall to tanzania to study chimps
the people in the region they gave her a nickname niria matchabiri which meant woman that lives
alone in the forest i'm sure they wondered like what was she doing up there strange woman strange
woman and very tall she was six foot this is actually from 1969. what she was doing
as stawinski showed us was observing gorillas for hours a day what she would do each night is
come back and type up all of her notes there is some soft pig grunting heard from the silver back
and gas is released and this just goes on and on and on fosse's research and her appearances
in national geographic helped change the perception of gorillas from aggressive
king kong brutes to the gentle vegetarian giants they actually are but gorillas back then
were under assault why were there poachers why were people interested well at the time
people unfortunately wanted parts of gorillas as trophies so they wanted a gorilla head for
their mantle piece or a gorilla hand the gorilla's habitat was also being eaten away
as thousands of acres of forest were cut down so farmers could plant cash crops up the mountainside
the demarcation line between farmland and forest stands out like a bad haircut showing how little
land gorillas have left we cut down their homes yeah i mean unfortunately that's the story for
wildlife around the world but here that story is getting a rewrite and the new version starts at
volcanoes national park headquarters every morning where tourists gather to trek to see gorillas
led by expert guides they can live up to 45 years the rwandan government regulates the visits
no more than eight people per group for just one hour with the gorillas with precautions taken to
protect them from human illness the price tag is steep fifteen hundred dollars per person turning
rwanda a country known for its horrific 1994 genocide not so much for its beautiful scenery
into a prime destination for the wealthy some of the most luxurious hotels in the world have
opened here generating tens of millions in tourism revenue other countries have diamonds
oil would you say that gorillas are the most important natural resource of this whole country
definitely definitely yeah it's one of if not the top source of foreign revenue is tourism to
see the gorillas for the whole country the whole country the government gives 10 percent of the
money from those guerrilla treks to districts that border national parks in a program called tourism
revenue sharing as you see this school behind that was the before chief park warden prosper owen
kelly met us at a local primary school behind him was the old school behind me look at the windows
new classrooms paid for by tourism revenue sharing funds it costs fifteen hundred dollars to go see
the gorillas for one hour for one hour special experience he admits it's a lot but says it's made
a tremendous difference in his meetings with local leaders we go there and we listen what communities
want the traditional revenue sharing to support they decide yeah they decide this village built
a health center this one new housing with water tanks and electricity here a new marketplace the
ten percent gives communities up to six hundred fifty thousand us dollars a year good morning
ewen kelly divides his time between greeting tourists managing his rangers and traveling
around these villages talking cajoling and celebrating what tourism revenue has achieved
a few years back this community chose to get milking cows
which have since had calves so the cows are now being given to new needy families
and those colorful striped sweaters they're a product of tourism revenue sharing
too one year this community used its funds to buy knitting machines a lot of the guides
porters come from these communities from these communities and some of them are former poachers
themselves no some of the porters and guides were poachers or come from poacher families so has
all poaching of gorillas stopped yeah in rwanda yes confidentially yes but gorillas can still get
caught in snares set for smaller animals like antelopes so the fosse fund dispatches a small
army of trackers every morning 365 days a year we go out into the forest we know every gorilla
and all of the families that we monitor we check and make sure every one of them is okay if one
looks ill we'll notify the veterinarians and we call this extreme conservation
it could also be called an extreme workout oh boy we set off on a gorilla trek with stowinski
owen kelly and a team of porters visiting mountain gorillas is no walk in the park
it's an uphill hike for more than an hour at an altitude of 8 000 feet through that farmland that
once belonged to the gorillas can we stop here just to get to the pot are you out of breath
yes or is it just me then just as we reach the park border ah oh my goodness gracious i can't
believe it a silverback used to seeing taurus sat calmly eating he's right here come come
unfazed by our gawking and pointing oohangeli told us he's an adult male named lee sanga
fosse fund country director felix indige mana taught us how to signal that we come in peace
that's very good inside the park after more climbing
oh my goodness we found the rest of lisanga's group let's follow that owen kelly told us the
dominant silverback was heading higher up the mountain so the whole group was following and
so were we in a sign of the population's health this group has five infants and several juveniles
oh my goodness yeah that happened that's serious they're having a ball
she told us they play for fun and to practice fighting or perhaps just to show us who's boss
near us in the forest it sounded like a silverback photo shoot was going on
but fosse fund research assistant nadia neonise wasn't snapping ordinary pictures
she was using a technique called photogrammetry to get better measurements of gorilla's size
there are four centimeter in between each by beaming lasers onto the gorilla's body and head
which it doesn't feel oh i see it back at the office she uses the dots to make
precise calculations of their size science remains the heart of the fosse fund's mission
they have the largest collection anywhere of gorilla skeletons where scientists from around
the world come to do research just sort of taking pieces out and pulling it like that and a gorilla
poop lab you gather their poop it's like a treasure trove of information for us to study
stress hormones and do dna and paternity testing but stawinski says they're running out of space
so they're constructing a new multi-building green campus with initial funding from ellen degeneres
set to open next year it'll celebrate the progress made in saving mountain gorillas
with plenty of space for researchers exhibits for tourists and people from local communities
and views of the volcanoes and you can see the mist it really rolls in the building
process itself reinforces the fund's motto helping people saving guerrillas it's employing more than
fifteen hundred local workers more than twenty percent of them women one exhibit on display here
will teach visitors to speak like a gorilla we can play we're happy that you want to
learn to speak like a gorilla it plays gorilla vocalizations somewhat comparable to human ones
yes gorillas laugh isn't that great so the idea is that you have to try and mimic it
that's impossible she gave me one she said it was simple
so this is the pig grunt what does it mean it's kind of like a mild warning this sort of human
version is uh uh you're on thin ice you want to try it with me recording and see yeah okay
try again i did such a bad job it's hard so fun it want to be fun though
stawinsky wants school kids to come and be inspired to solve the next set of problems
increasing numbers of gorillas inhabiting a fixed amount of space as the population has increased
but the habitat hasn't it is putting more pressure on the gorillas and so the government is looking
to try and expand the park so that there will be more space so that population can continue to grow
there are plans to expand the park by 23 percent and relocate communities
to what the government calls model villages like this one with electricity and brand new
schools trying to make park expansion another win-win for guerrillas and their human neighbors
it's a success story it is a success story definitely but we say it's a fragile success
because there are so few of them left and there are still so many threats
but for now the news is good so far this year 24 new baby gorillas have been born here
wow i mean you can't have enough of telling those stories of corridors when you look at the
mums carrying the babies do you know that when you talk about gorillas your face completely lights up
i know about it but much of the smile comes from what they are helping us to achieve that's really
the best way we can serve the next generation of kids gorillas oh my goodness and and people