Florida College Students Helping to Save Dian Fossey's Gorillas

Four Florida college students are helping to publish a booklet that will assist critically endangered gorillas in Rwanda as well as the trackers and other natives who live close to the gorillas.

Miami, FL (PRWEB) May 12, 2006 -- Twenty years after the death of gorilla researcher Dr. Dian Fossey, her spirit continues to assist the critically endangered gorillas and the locals who share their misty Virunga mountains in northern Rwanda.

Four students from Florida International University are helping to publish a booklet that will inform English-speaking tourists about the gorillas and their habitat, made famous by Fossey's book, "Gorillas in the Mist."

The idea for the booklet came from Mr. Francis Bayingana, a guide with the Rwandan Office of Parks and Tourism (ORTPN). With the help of other trackers, whose first language is Kinyarwandan, Bayingana gathered information to answer the questions most often asked by tourists about the gorillas. But, twelve years after the genocide in which nearly one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed, Rwanda remains a very poor country. Bayingana would need outside help to get this information published.

Fate stepped in when Bayingana happened to guide Minnesota writer, Georgianne Nienaber, who was in Rwanda to research a book about Dian Fossey. Ms. Nienaber had a friend in Miami, Dr. Sian Evans of the DuMond Conservancy, who assigned the gorilla booklet project to four of her Primate Biology students.

Diana Achong, Chad Lee, Pamela Ledward and Eduardo Leiva are now editing Mr. Bayingana's notes and helping to prepare the booklet for publication.

"As the students learned more about Rwanda," Dr. Evans said, "they wanted to help not only the trackers and the gorillas, but also the people who live so close to the gorillas."

The students learned that Bayingana also runs a community project, Rwanda's Hope, which assists widows who survived the genocide. This inspired the students to include information in the booklet about native crafts produced by Rwanda's Hope. The 12-page booklet will be sold at the newly-built gift shop in Kinigi, Rwanda, the area where Dian Fossey once worked, and now is the starting point for most gorilla trekking excursions.

The booklet is nearly ready for publication, but hurdles remain as a sponsor is needed to cover the printing costs. Companies or individuals wishing to donate to the project should contact Dr. Evans at (305) 793-7702. Insty-Prints of Brainerd, Minnesota has offered to produce a limited run of gorilla posters to be sold with the booklets. Andrea Lee Lambrecht, a nature writer from Minnesota, is also helping to coordinate the production.

###