www.rwandan-flyer.com

04/07/2014

This is a  World Press Review about the Kwita Izina event.

National Geographic

As Mountain Gorillas Bounce Back, Rwanda Names Gorilla Newborns

Jean-Felix Kinani was far from center stage Tuesday when Rwanda held its tenth annual Kwita Izina, the national naming ceremony for baby mountain gorillas born during the past 12 months. Yet the 18 baby gorillas named at the event owe much to his team of veterinarians.

Kinani, 42, is the head Rwanda veterinarian with Gorilla Doctors, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the health of the world’s 880 remaining mountain gorillas—the iconic animals found in Rwanda, Uganda, and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the only great apes on Earth whose numbers are increasing.

Since 2005, when Rwanda’s tourism authorities launched the event—adapted from a centuries-old human baby naming tradition—Kinani has witnessed the naming of 163 Rwanda-born primates.  This year’s infants, whose Kinyarwanda-language names were announced by a range of local and international diplomats, conservationists, and tourism officials, included Inzozi (“dreams”), Twiyubake (“self-reliance”), Ndengera (“protect me”), and Kundurwanda (“love Rwanda”).

Kinani, who spends two days a week monitoring gorillas in the forest, claims to know all the animals.”Sometimes it’s difficult to recognize them, because some of them look the same,” he says. “But if I go in a group, I know who I will find, and I can tell you their life story. Gorillas are like my brothers, my sisters.”

FULL ARTICLE : HERE

IAfrica.com

Rwandan visit with wild mountain gorillas was awesome and magical

Pamela Roth

It’s hard to find the words to describe the sensation of looking into the eyes of a wild mountain gorilla standing so close you could touch it.

Thrilling, mesmerizing, magical, awesome are just a few of the sensations rippling through me as I lock eyes with a female gorilla casually munching on a plant. It feels as though we’re long lost friends. My heart fills with joy. I can’t believe I am here.

I had just hiked two hours up the slopes of Mount Bisoke in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park with eight people, including my father. When I’m told to put on my rain jacket and garden gloves for protection against the stinging nettle bushes we’re about to enter, nothing could have prepared me for what I would experience on the other side.

On the ground lying on its side was a male silverback gorilla having a mid-morning nap. Two smaller gorillas do the same behind him. One of them perks up and takes note of the people staring at him in disbelief.

A female gorilla and her baby sleep a few feet away. Another silverback — the leader of the group — lurks in the bushes nearby. I feel like I’ve been transported into another world. “Holy mackerel!” says my wide-eyed father, soaking in the magical scene around him.

On a 16-day tour with Intrepid Travel, I came to Rwanda with my father to experience the thrill of being with the largest living primates in their natural habitat. Less than 900 mountain gorillas are now left in the wild. They roam the forests of an extinct volcanic region along the borders of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and remain an endangered species.

Each day, groups of eight people are guided to spend an hour with one of the 10 habituated families used for ecotourism in the park. The other eight families are left for research purposes.

In order to find the gorillas, a team of trackers are out at 6 a.m. looking for the families, then radio their whereabouts to the guides. On this particular day, we’re tracking the Ntambaru Group, which has 14 members lead by one male silverback.

FULL ARTICLE : HERE

Travel Daily News

Gorilla tourism in Rwanda helps the surrounding communities

Tatiana Roku

For a decade, the African nation of Rwanda has celebrated the mountain Gorillas, rare and endangered primates, through a colourful naming ceremony locally called “Kwita Izina”. This year 2014, is the 10th anniversary of the global event, and Rwanda has a conservation story to tell about the rare primates.

Naming and conserving mountain Gorillas has become an international concern for the past ten years. Big international names like CNN founder Ted Turner, Microsoft co-founder billionaire Bill Gates, Hollywood icon Natalie Portman and more have visited Rwanda’s mountain Gorillas and named infants. Rwanda has over 150 mountain gorillas, from 10 families or groups. Bill Gates visited one of the families in June 2006 called Sabyinyo and named a baby from it as ‘KEZA’ or ‘cute one’.

Rwanda will celebrate the birth this year of 18 mountain Gorillas, on the 10th anniversary of Gorilla naming, on July 1, 2014 in the Musanze district, near the gorilla habitat shared between Rwanda, Uganda and Democratic Republic of the Congo.

There are strict rules to ensure safety of both gorillas and the tourists. Visitors must maintain at least a distance of 7 meters between themselves and the gorillas, a maximum of 8 tourists per visit, a limit of one tourism group per day, per each gorilla group, and visits limited to an hour.

Rwanda’s mountain gorillas were first brought to international attention by the conservation efforts of American late Dian Fossey in the 1960s and 1970s, a call that Rwanda has given undivided attention since then. Since the genocide targeting Tutsis in 1994, Rwanda’s tourism and hospitality sectors have boomed.

Last year, tourism revenue rose to $294m, from a meager $62m in the year 2000. Payments for gorilla permits count for a bigger portion. In 2010, Rwanda hosted 666,000 visitors who generated US$ 200M – a 14% increase from 2009. In 2013, Rwanda hosted 1,137,000 visitors.

Five percent of the revenues collected from gorilla tourism are invested in the surrounding communities. Park communities have benefitted from more than 300 projects including schools.

FULL ARTICLE : HERE