Tourists will soon profit from proceeds of a four-year old project dubbed Greater Virunga Transboundary Collaboration (GVTC) that brings together Rwanda, Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo to collaborate in the conservation of Greater Virunga.
This follows consensus by the three countries to develop regional cross-border tourism circuits in the Greater Virunga to ease the movement of tourists across borders. Once the arrangement rolls off, tourists will freely continue with tourism activities across the Virunga parks, which know no country boundaries between the three countries.
A gollira relaxing in Bwindi Impenetrable NP:
The Greater Virunga Transboundary Collaboration (GVTC) was formed from informal transboundary activities by park rangers with the intention to curb poaching. It started over 20 years ago with the gorilla habitat in the Virungas; Virunga National Park (DRC), Volcanoes National Park (Rwanda), Mgahinga Gorilla and Bwindi Impenetrable National parks (Uganda) working together to ensure safety of the mountain gorillas.
But over the years, the collaboration has grown from just looking at the security of the gorillas to collaborative research and now cross-border tourism - with the Greater Virunga landscape expanded to include the northern part of Virunga in the DRC and Queen Elizabeth, Rwenzori Mountains and Semuliki National parks in Uganda.
Based on the initial success of the informal collaboration between park staff, the three protected area agencies; the Congolese Institute of Conservation of Nature (ICCN), Rwanda Development Board (RDB) and Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), with support from the International Gorilla Conservation Programme and a four-year funding (2008-2011) of Euros 4.1 million from the Kingdom of Netherlands, through its embassy in Rwanda, decided to establish GVTC.
With its office in Kigali, GVTC aims at sustainable conservation of the Central Albertine Rift biodiversity. At the meeting in Kampala for the first time for the GVTC Regional Forum at Protea hotel, Sam Mwandha GVTC’s Executive Director revealed that the collaboration has already registered gains since its inception.
He cited the gorilla census figures as a clear sign of success of the collaboration following the increase in the numbers of gorillas from 380 to 480 in the Mgahinga, Volcanoes and Virunga National parks between 2006 and 2010.
“Crucially the collaboration has stood firm, despite chronic regional instability and civil war,” he said.
A researcher makes data recording about golliras
Currently, the three countries are carrying out the gorilla census for Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, the home to half of the world’s gorilla population with the figures for the 2006 census standing at 340 gorillas. Despite its high conservation value, the Greater Virunga Landscape, Mwandha said, has remained a major hotspot of conflicts with the people surrounding the parks remaining poor despite the abundant resources in the area.
This has put pressure on the natural resources, resulting in their degradation and possible extinction. With the collaboration, Mwandha noted that poaching, for example, will be dealt with.
“Take an instance of Queen Elizabeth National Park, sometimes we have poachers crossing in from the other side of Congo. If Uganda is doing the patrol alone, the poacher will run across and escape into Congo. So, what we do is to get UWA in Queen Elizabeth coordinate with Virunga across.
“They send rangers together with the Ugandan rangers working on the Uganda side and vice versa,” he said.
In the future, the collaboration will empower each country to pursue poachers into another country without permission to cross the border. The three countries have also signed a memorandum of understanding that guarantees them a 50% revenue sharing in relation of movement of habituated gorilla groups from one country to another.
by Joseph
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