Travel Blog

The News is publishing a series about Black Press reporter Colleen Dane’s recent trip to sub-Saharan Africa. Dane, a former News reporter now working at our sister paper in Courtenay, was the recipient of the Seeing the World Through New Eyes fellowship, funded by the Jack Webster Foundation and CIDA, and designed to introduce young reporters to international reporting. Her stories focus on development issues in Mozambique and Rwanda.

This is the final instalment.

Edwin Sabuhoro was horrified when, as an employee of Rwanda’s Parcs National des Volcans in 2005, he heard that a baby gorilla had been killed in the reserve, and was for sale for $2,000 American dollars.

He was sad and unbelieving. He was looking deep into the eyes of the person who reported the crime. Unfortunately he saw truth there and decided he had to find out for himself.

So, Sabuhoro walked all night and a day, planning with park staff and police to feign a purchase and find justice for the baby and members of its family that were also killed in its capture. He arrived at the house, walked in, and saw its body in a bag, on the table.

"Immediately, I’m in shock and I start to cry and he says what's happening?" said Sabuhoro about the poacher's reaction to his tears.

He bluffed his way through the meeting though, and when the transaction was confirmed, the man was arrested by waiting police and taken away to prison.

That didn’t end the heartache though for Sabuhoro. After losing sleep for nights, he went back to the village to ask why — and instead of an answer, he got more questions.

The people poached animals like elephant or buffalo because they needed to feed their families, he said — they sold illegal product because they wanted to send their kids to school, or re-plant their fields when wild animals destroyed them.

In a country where tourists are paying $500 for an hour’s visit with some of the world’s remaining 700 mountain gorillas, the people living at the foothills of Dian Fossey’s famous volcanic stomping grounds were still unable to provide themselves the basics of life. It became the focus of Sabuhoro’s master’s thesis completed in the UK, and when he returned home to Rwanda, he was insistent on finding a solution that would work for his countrymen, beloved gorillas and all the conservation idealists in between.

"The person that is killing — how do you change his mind?" said Sabuhoro.

The drums are increasing in sound as we walk along soft black-earth pathways between mud huts and small gardens. On the outskirts of the little residential hub is a fenced clearing, with the misty mountains looming behind them.

There are dozens of people in semi-circle: wearing worn and dirty second-hand clothing that seem self-consciously Western despite the assuredly African setting. They’re watching people dance — dance without reserve, while some sing, some drum and others look in. This is our welcome to Nyabigoma Village, one of Musanze’s (formally Ruehengari) newest tourism products, also one of the cheapest.

Sabuhoro came back from the UK and moved into this 500-household village, spread across kilometres and kilometres of stone fence outlining the park. Its residents were fed mostly by illegally poached animals because they needed the income of both money and food.

He taught them about conservation techniques and introduced them to the ideas of dwindling animal populations. He told them about tourism ideas and the potential market that was coming to the areas all around them — and together they came up with this.

It’s eco/ethical tourism personified — an opportunity for people to visit while contributing to the local economy in a low-impact way. In Nyabigoma, visitors make a donation equivalent to about $10 US, and then spend anywhere from an hour to an afternoon, walking the foothills of the community, trekking through an underground cave damp with the cast-off of the village’s well, visiting the area’s medicine man — maybe trying to grind flour, maybe drinking a little banana beer (a traditional local drink) and of course, dancing.

Tourists who visit there are now supporting a locally-created and run business that supports the families of the village who are now contributing to the mountain gorilla and park protection efforts. If visitors buy drawings or carvings of the gorillas there, they’re contributing directly to the youth that have made them, taught the art skills by others in the village. Residents who participate in Nyabigoma are now a part of groups that help guides in the park find snares and the people who lay them.

While Edwin owns and operates his own eco-tourism company called Rwanda Eco-Tours, the money doesn’t go anywhere near him. Admission donations go instead to a local council, made up of representatives from across their village, who meet to decide where that money will go.

Maybe it’ll go to help some kids go to school, or to buy new seeds for the farms or for medical help if somebody needs it.

"To me that’s conservation, that’s ecotourism, that's responsible tourism," said Sabuhoro.

Bikwira Pollinaire is a shy man of 70 years old. He ducks into the hut, taking off his worn second-hand hat, and then sitting on a tipsy wooden bench, looking at his feet.

He was 30 years old when he started poaching in the national park. He had moved to the area on foot when the land he lived on before became unfarmable.

"When they reached here, he was very poor and so he reached other poachers and they said don't die of hunger, here is where you can get meat," says Sabuhoro, translating Pollinaire’s answer to why he started poaching. Together the group laid snares — catching elephants, buffalo, bushbuck and other animals to feed themselves and their families.

It was a dangerous job — between dodging other poachers, the park’s guards and the equipment they used to catch such animals, there was no guarantee they’d get home.

Gacungu Leonard was 14-years old when he started poaching with his dad.

"He started now taking them to show them how to do it", he said "in case I'm sick, in case I don't return, you go and do it like this," said Sabuhoro, translating Leonard's Kinyarwandan answer.

These are just two of the men of Nyabigoma who shared their stories about the change in their lives from poacher to professional hosts.
While many say they would never kill gorillas because they’re too human-like, some do admit to the practice — selling hands or heads as grisly souvenirs. Those who didn’t kill them on purpose say the snares sometimes caught the endangered animals inadvertently. They killed other animals quickly though - The thing is, is that the generations-old practice of poaching still wasn’t working for them.

"He was poaching and though he was poaching he never sustained his family," translates Sabuhoro for Dominique. When they started learning about conservation, it began to make sense. They believed Sabuhoro when he told them there were other ways to feed their families that allowed them to be at home more, in a safe place contributing to the international conservation efforst on their doorstep. Many of these men stopped in 2006 - too busy putting together a replica King’s hut for people to visit on their site. They say they love the visitors who come and dance with them - they’re amazed that people care.

And while the village seems to be working since it opened last summer, it still isn’t easy. They’re still trying to convince others to stop the poaching in the park, and the council is trying to build their income to prove the benefit of the project. Without poaching too, they get little meat to eat now. Most rely on corn and potatoes for their nourishment.

That makes 70-year old Pollinaire feel old beyond his years, he said, but it’s still worth it.

"Now they have been able to see the value of the animals they used to kill — but now they see the people coming to see the gorillas. Now he has the pleasure to talk to people, now people come to dance, now he’s sharing with you and he feels very special for that," rushes Sabuhoro to keep up with Pollinaire’s sudden burst of comment. "He believes that once people start visiting your family, you have good luck."