Addressing Hunger Protects Gorillas

Our protein access projects protect the gorillas by providing families in Africa with food and income so they have an alternative to poaching.

With resources from the Fossey Fund, groups of women widowed by the wars in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo have formed community organizations for growing crops and managing animal husbandry. Our program also serves other community groups and families, including the often-marginalized Ba'Twa community around Volcanoes National Park.

Working with communities in Rwanda/Congo

We begin by meeting with community groups to discuss their preferences for protein sources of food, such as protein-producing crops and small mammal husbandry.  For example, some groups raise pigs, give some offspring to neighbors and keep and sell the rest. Our protein access program provides them with animals to breed, veterinary care, and training in animal husbandry, humane ways to care for the animals, and how to use animal waste for composting.

The widows’ organization near the Tayna Nature Reserve in the Congo earns enough money from their crops to supply food to an orphanage and provide a small income for 244 widows, 84 of whom are too old to work.

Helping the Ba’Twa

The Ba’Twa are an indigenous group of hunter-gatherers who historically have used local forests to hunt for food, supplementing this with local plants. Our program aims to help the Ba'Twa integrate into local communities outside the park, in collaboration with our national partner REDO (Rural Environment and Development Organization), and to provide alternate sources of protein, in this case by raising goats. The participants agree to protect the forest by respecting grazing laws.

Learn about all the ways that the Fossey Fund saves gorillas by helping people.