While DFGFI staff are in the field every day protecting the mountain gorillas, we are also monitoring their status and collecting and recording information about them, which we compile into our long-term databases. This data now constitutes one of the largest collections of its kind in the world and is enormously useful in helping us study and understand the gorillas’ lives and conservation status.
Although study of the mountain gorillas has always been the main focus of our scientific work in Rwanda, we are now able to expand our work to include much more of the flora and fauna that occupy the forests with the gorillas. Most of this research is being conducted by local conservationists under our auspices, including students from the National University of Rwanda, some of whom we have since hired to continue their work.
