Satellieten brengen woongebied bedreigde berggorilla's in kaart


Gorilla territory
 
A virtual 'overflight' of Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda, based on the new Build Environment for Gorilla (BEGo) data products produced for the area. These include a digital elevation model (DEM) of the area, land cover map and base map, all of which will be used to enhance efforts to conserve mountain gorillas in the Park and its surroundings. These maps - plus the satellite imagery they are based on - are shown here draped over the DEM. Similar satellite-derived map products are being produced for other mountain gorilla habitats across Central Africa, several of them UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund
 
Photo: Courtesy Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund


 
The habitat of the mountain gorillas is located on a transboundary area straddling the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda and including 5 natural parks that are or are nominated-to-be- on the World Heritage List : Virunga National Park (DRC), Kahuzi-Biega National Park (DRC), Bwindi National Park (Uganda) , Mgahinga National Park (Uganda) and the National Park of the Volcanoes (Rwanda).

Virunga volcanoes
 
In this transfrontier region of Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the volcanic highlands of the Virungas shelter the last 600 plus mountain gorillas in the world. Photo: Courtesy of International Gorilla Conservation Program (IGCP) a coalition of AWF,WWF,and FFI.

An adolescent mountain gorilla
 
An adolescent mountain gorilla chews at a branch in a thicket upon which it feeds, inside the newly-reopened Volcanos National Park, near Ruhengeri, Rwanda, Friday, July 16, 1999. The park, located near the Ugandan and Congolese borders in northern Rwanda, is home to a population of the highly endangered primates, which currently number several hundred.



Release date: 29 juni 2004