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The Great Lakes region of Central Africa has suffered war and genocide over the past decade. At the heart of it is the Virunga forest, which straddles Rwanda, Uganda and Congo. The forest has sheltered armed militias and refugees and is surrounded by people desperate for food, firewood and land. But it is also one of the last refuges of the mountain gorilla, and so is off-limits to people. Should the gorillas’ needs come before people’s? Annette Lanjouw, a Dutch primatologist and director of the International Gorilla Conservation Programme, argues the two are not in conflict. She tells Stephanie Pain that protecting the forest is vital for both.

It must be hard for people trying to eke out a living around the edge of the forest to see so much money and effort go into conserving gorillas.

Most people understand the value of the work. They realise that gorillas are now an important economic commodity for all three countries. Still, for some people this is hard to accept because they perceive the government as benefiting while they pay the price. They feel they suffer when animals leave the park and damage their fields or crops, and they don’t have access to more land for cultivation. The problem animals are usually buffalo, elephants, forest pigs or baboons-rarely gorillas.

Faced with desperate refugees searching for food in the forest, how would you justify refusing them access?

I would say that we need to find food and firewood for them outside the park. It is illegal inside the park, and they have to accept that. It is possible to grow fast-growing trees outside the park, to plant bamboo and grow beans and potatoes, to raise chickens, rabbits, goats. Most people can and do survive without ever having to break the law. The park needs to work with the local people to help them resolve these problems and find legal alternatives so that they aren’t forced to go into the park.

But surely conservation is not a high priority for the governments in this region?

All three governments support conservation here. For many years there have been efforts to protect the mountain gorillas and that has brought benefits to the region, through tourism for instance. However, since 1990 these governments have been confronted with very different priorities: humanitarian, political and military. They needed to find immediate solutions for very pressing problems. In Rwanda, for example, the government needed to find land to resettle all the displaced people. At one point they considered using part of the park for that.

What changed their mind?

We explained that conservation and the welfare of the people are not two different things. They are actually one and the same. The population density around the forest is enormous. Around 90 per cent of these people depend on subsistence agriculture. Their plots are on steep hillsides. To be productive, they need enough rain and they need protection from erosion. That can only be guaranteed by adequate forest cover, and the forest in the parks is the only natural forest left in the region.

Has the Rwandan government found somewhere else to settle these people?

The process has begun but it is slow and difficult. These people are agricultural by tradition, but there’s a shortage of land and so lots of effort is going into finding alternative livelihoods for some of them.

How can people benefit economically from conservation?

Tourism is one example. In Uganda, we’ve developed a mountain gorilla ecotourism programme. This is generating money for the country, and a proportion of that income is set aside in a fund for local community projects. Another way is to establish tourism-based enterprises, such as arts and crafts, dancing troupes, restaurants, small hotels and other places where people can stay.

Given the recent violence, how do you persuade tourists to come?

We don’t really have to convince people to come. The desire to see such charismatic animals in the wild is a very strong motivating factor. People come from all over the world, sometimes at great expense. In Uganda, tourism is at about 80 per cent of capacity. And in Rwanda the number of tourists is steadily increasing. There is no tourism in the Democratic Republic of Congo, of course, because of the civil war.

But surely you can’t rely on tourism to underpin conservation?

We can’t put all our eggs in the tourist basket. It is a fragile industry, prone to change when there is instability or crisis in the region. That means it must not be the only reason to justify conservation. People support conservation because the forest helps to protect livelihoods. Not just farmers-small industries such as beekeeping also depend on the forest. We do need other strategies too. One is to find ways to allow people to use some of the conservation zones in a manner compatible with conservation.

During the conflict, what sort of threats did the gorillas face?

You have to look at it in the context of the whole forest, not just the gorillas. If the forest is destroyed then the gorillas and many other animals will go too. The instability in the region since 1990 meant that people couldn’t cultivate their fields normally. They had to supplement their food and fuel wood from other sources. So they went into the forest. There were more direct threats too. Some militia groups went in and shot the gorillas. Many people used the forest to hide in. People didn’t dig proper latrines or garbage holes, putting gorillas and other wildlife at risk of disease. Gorillas are very vulnerable to human diseases. During the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, tens of thousands of people travelled through the Virungas to camps on the Congo side of the forest. This increased the amount of poaching and destruction of the habitat. Later, when the Interahamwe-those responsible for the genocide-fled, they laid mines all through the forest. People were killed and maimed and at least one gorilla died.

Have these threats receded?

Armed groups still move through the forest, and hundreds of thousands of people live around the edge. Encroachment will remain a threat until alternatives to agriculture are found. On top of that, the breakdown of society in the region means that people are more likely to ignore authority. People are doing things in the park that they wouldn’t have done before, such as poaching, cutting down trees and mining. They’ll do whatever they can to survive. The transmission of disease to gorillas is also a very real threat. People are becoming poorer and poorer and access to healthcare is growing worse. These are problems that can’t be addressed until there’s peace and stability in the region.

Don’t tourists put the gorillas’ health at risk too?

Tourists are allowed only in groups of six for a maximum of one hour a day. And they must stay seven metres from the animals. That distance has been calculated by an epidemiologist who studies transmission of diseases. The other people the gorillas come into conflict with are conservationists, researchers, park staff, local people and militias. Some of these people will respect the guidelines for protecting wildlife, others won’t. Tourists are easy to control and we can influence most of the other people to some extent. There’s more of a problem with militia groups moving around the park. We have no influence over them.

How does your organisation fit in?

The IGCP has worked in the region since 1991. It’s a joint programme run by a coalition of conservation groups working with the wildlife protection authorities of Rwanda, Congo and Uganda. The coalition includes the African Wildlife Foundation, Fauna and Flora International and the World Wide Fund for Nature. All the programme’s work depends on the rangers who work for the parks. Without them the forest will disappear, with all the wildlife in it. Rangers have worked in the forest throughout the conflict, and many have been killed or wounded. The role of the IGCP is to help them do their job as effectively as possible by providing funding, logistical support, advice on conservation and strategies for managing the forest.

Despite the recent horrors, have you had any success with conservation?

The number of gorillas in the Virungas has increased by at least 11 per cent since the last census in 1989. Last December we counted 358. Even now there are two pockets of the forest where it’s still unsafe because of militia activity, and where even the park rangers can’t patrol, so it’s possible there are more gorillas there. The only other population lives in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in southwest Uganda. At the last census in 1999 there were 300 in Bwindi and that seems to be a stable figure. That makes a total of 658. There are no mountain gorillas in captivity.

How do you think the Virunga population has managed to grow, when the odds have been so stacked against it?

It’s certainly not because the threats have diminished. They have only increased since the last census. At least 15 gorillas have been killed as a direct consequence of the conflict. There has been an increase in movements of people through the forest, of deforestation and poaching. The number of snares has increased. The only explanation is that the conservation and protection work has kept the threats at bay.

Have you ever been in danger yourself?

All the staff have had difficulties while in the park. Rarely from wildlife. Encounters with some animals, such as elephants, have been a bit frightening at times. Still, with wildlife you can generally avoid trouble. The real danger comes from people. We have had dangerous moments driving on roads that were mined, being held up by gunmen and being in towns that were attacked at night. I don’t think I really want to talk about personal incidents. There have been some but they have been far less acute than some of the dangers my staff have faced because of their nationality. Suffice it to say that yes, we have all been in potentially dramatic situations. We are constantly aware of these dangers and do everything possible to avoid them. We aren’t cowboys out looking for adventure. We would all like to continue doing our conservation work for a long time.