Overview

Rich with details about the gorillas' lives, the realities of conservation, and portraits of ordinary people caught in extraordinary times, this is a riveting adventure story that is sure to take its place among the classic accounts of the world of nature. In 1978, when Bill Weber and Amy Vedder arrived in Rwanda to study mountain gorillas with Dian Fossey, the gorilla population was teetering towards extinction. Poaching was rampant, but it was loss of habitat that most endangered the gorillas. When yet another slice of the Virunga Mountains was targeted for development, Weber and Vedder recognized that the gorillas were doomed unless something was done to save their land. Over Fossey's objections, they helped found the Mountain Gorilla Project. The MGP was designed to educate Rwandans about the gorillas and about the importance of conservation, while at the same time establishing an ecotourism project - one of the first anywhere in a rainforest - to bring desperately needed revenue to Rwanda. Weber and Vedder describe their experiences getting to know entire families of gorillas, from powerful silverback patriarchs to helpless newborn infants. They tell us about the gorillas they recognised and came to know as individuals, stories both tragic and joyful. They describe a landscape that was heaven one day, green hell the next. And they tell of their discovery of the terrible and mysterious events surrounding Fossey's murder. They explain that the key to saving the mountain gorillas was helping the people of Rwanda--even in the face of a horrendous civil war--to share in the benefits of conservation.

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9780743200073

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Reviews

As a primer for the uncomfortable reality that lies ahead, every starry-eyed would-be conservationist should read this book...Its range is immense. --Times of London Literary Supplement

Bill McKibbenAuthor of The End of Nature The best book ever written for those who want to understand not only the glory of Africa's wildlife but also the setting for that glory.... Bill Weber and Amy Vedder are two remarkable human beings; the gorillas were lucky to find them, and you are, too.

As a primer for the uncomfortable reality that lies ahead, every starry-eyed would-be conservationist should read this book...Its range is immense. <br> <br> Times of London Literary Supplement

As a primer for the uncomfortable reality that lies ahead, every starry-eyed would-be conservationist should read this book...Its range is immense. Times of London Literary Supplement

Author Information

Bill Weber and Amy Vedder, of the Wildlife Conservation Society, have devoted more than twenty-five years to the cause of conservation in nearly thirty countries in Africa and around the world.

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