Last 400 of a kind @Virunga Volcanic Mountains
What are the main threats?
Habitat loss
More than 100,000 people live in the remote areas where mountain gorillas are found. Their need for land to cultivate has reduced the forest in which the gorillas live to virtual islands in the middle of expanding human settlements.
Between 1990 and 1994, large numbers of Rwandan refugees fled to camps at the edge of the Virunga National Park, leading to uncontrolled firewood harvesting as well as increased poaching (see below).
In 2004, 1,500 hectares of prime mountain gorilla habitat were cleared by illegal settlers in Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to evidence uncovered by the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature, one of WWF’s partners. Convoys of people from Rwanda and DRC destroyed large tracts of the park, home to mountain gorillas and other endangered species, to create agricultural and pastoral land.
