Education is now also a main focus of the Karisoke Research Center. This involves a variety of efforts, including working with local university students as well as primary and secondary schools, participating in community awareness efforts, and providing training and manuals for local conservation partners.
In recent years, Karisoke has served as a center for Rwandan university students in biology to conduct and complete their thesis studies on various aspects of the flora and fauna in the Virungas. This has proved highly successful, with students studying not only the mountain gorillas, but other animals in the forest, vegetation, and interactions between the park animals and lands with local communities. Their work has enabled Karisoke to begin new formal research programs in botany, ornithology, the rare golden monkey, and other topics.
Karisoke staff has also provided conservation field courses for students from the National University of Rwanda and the Higher Institute of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry. These have included such topics as gorilla behavior and ecology and golden monkey ecology and conservation. In-depth internships on primates and on botany, as well as primate behavior courses and presentations on Karisoke‘s work have also been presented to local students in higher education institutes.
Karisoke staff works with local primary and secondary schools in various programs. Some of these activities include:
Karisoke staff have completed a series of training manuals covering all aspects of biodiversity in the Volcanoes National Park, as well as other topics. These are used for education and training of new staff, students, park guards, tourist guides and others. Karisoke also conducts training sessions for park tourist guides from ORTPN (the Rwanda office of tourism and national parks). These include topics such as history and biodiversity of the park, gorilla and other primate behavior, ecology and conservation, golden monkey ecology, behavior conservation, tourism impact, Karisoke/Fossey history and more.
Karisoke staff also conducts various workshops for conservation partners, such as database training for ORTPN staff, with the purpose of creating a biodiversity inventory for Rwanda’s protected areas. Similar workshops have been conducted for staff from Akagera and Nyungwe national parks, and for staff of the Institute of Research Science and Technology.
