In the Kingdom of Gorillas by Weber and Vedder

Those who know me are fully aware how fond I am of Gorillas -I basically believe they are the coolest creatures on this entire planet. Thus when I picked up In the Kingdom of Gorillas from Monkey World, I was expecting a delightful read. I did enjoy and appreciate the book, but it was quite different than I thought.

The book tells story of two idealistic wildlife conservationists, Bill Weber and Amy Vedder, who travelled to Rwanda in 70's, to work and study under the legendary Dian Fossey, and their subsequent work to establish the Virunga national park and the eco-tourism that saved the mountain homes of Gorillas.

While the writers are not professional novellists (a certainly think involving a seasoned author would have helped), their scientific background allows them to write in clear and concise manner. They tell of their first meeting with gorillas, the history of the Rwanda and its colonial past, and the two native people, Hutus and Tutsis.

Perhaps the most shocking part of the book was the material on Dian Fossey, the celebrated Gorilla conservationist. So unbelievable were the stories in fact, that I had to do some checking on my own to verify them. Unfortunately, by all accounts the stories in the book are true.

Dian Fossey was of course a very important icon for the women's movement, and became an idol for an entire generation of western women, but her much vaunted legacy is somewhat tainted. Her policies for protecting the gorillas were an enormous failure -her decision to hire guards to shoot any black people who entered the national park, submitting suspected poachers to hideous tortures, mistreating her staff on basis of their race, all these things earned the wrath of the local people, who murdered gorillas as revenge for her brutality. She was suspected to spend large proportion of the research fund to buy ever-increasing amounts of alcohol to feed her habit.

By the end of her life she was but a sad, racist, alcoholic shadow of herself, who died in her cabin with a machete wound through her skull, a loaded gun next to her. Her killer was never caught.

Dian'sreal importance was as an icon that brought the plight of gorillas into attention of the world. Her intial research on Gorillas was ground-breaking, and her pioneering work opened the possibility to save the Gorillas, so perhaps she should not be judged too harshly. She did devote her entire life to saving Gorillas, however flawed her methods might have been.

Weber and Vedder built the Gorilla program from nothing, making it the third most important revenue source for Rwanda. They quickly realised that the only plausible way to save the gorillas was to make sure that the local people, depserately poor farmers of Virunga, benefited from the conservation effort. Therefore the hired locals as guides, guards and trackers, and through their efforts the gorilla numbers rose from 260 to over 600. Then the disaster struck: in a single bloody year the Rwandan genocide erupted.

The book covers the background and the events of the Rwandan genocide much clearer and better than any study I've read on the subject. I now finally understand the history and the events that led to the appalling mass-murder of some 800,000 Tutsis. During the Rwandan genocide the world press were often more interested in how the gorillas were faring than hearing about the plight of the Tutsis. Most criticism of the book is directed towards the Western powers for not intervining -hardly surprising as there is no natural resources in Rwanda that the west covets.

But throughout the book, the main characters are always the Gorillas: gentle giants who share 99% of their genes with us. Their family lives, personalities, reactions to the eco-tourists, these are the real soul of the book. Dry scientist they may be, but Weber and Vedder are clearly moved by each encounter with the majestic creatures. It certainly made me resolute to donate more money for the cause of saving gorillas, and at the same time help the native people to rebuild their lives.

Posted by Dragon at 13 April 21:14, 2004