Over the next few posts I’ll share with you pictures made by our
Art of Conservation students of several different animals that live in the Virunga Forest and a bit of information about these animals, their habitat and country statistics. I love the effort each student has put forth in their pictures, I hope you do too.
With pencil and paper, students from all three classes follow Eric’s instruction on
how to draw a mountain gorilla.
There are 740 mountain gorillas remaining in the world today with half of the population in the Virunga Forest and the other half in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Uganda. 70% of these mountain gorillas are visited by tourists each year.
The Virunga Forest – Parc National des Vocans (PNV) – consists of 125 Km2 of mountain forest and six Virunga Volcanoes: Karisimbi, Visoke, Mikeno, Sabyinyo, Gahinga, and Muhabura. Genetic similarity between people and gorillas is around 98%.
After the anatomical lesson of drawing a gorilla, students receive watercolor paper and paints and create a gorilla any way they desire!
Rwanda, where our art classes are being held, is a poor rural country with about 90% of the population engaged in mainly subsistence agriculture. A few of the environmental issues are deforestation, overgrazing, soil exhaustion, soil erosion and widespread poaching.
Primary school education enrollment has increased even if many of the children in primary school are above the official primary school age range, due to late entry and delays in their schooling. Only 8% of children aged 13 to 18 years are in secondary education.
This sweet young boy draws a great gorilla.
AIDS-HIV transmission, malaria, and tuberculosis are threatening diseases prevalent in Rwanda. So are food or waterborne diseases such as diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever.
Eric at the chalkboard with students following his instructions.
There is strong evidence suggesting that many primate species are susceptible to many of the infections that humans are afflicted with and that the transmission of infection can occur in both directions.
Please stay tuned for Fahad’s instruction of more VIRUNGA FOREST ANIMALSl!
Julie
Donations made here are
Dec 30th Nicole D USD 25.00
7 Comments
Julie, I’m always learning something when I visit your blog, right along with your students. Beautiful drawings of our gorillas! Thank you.
Hi Theresa, You are most welcome any day to draw with us. Julie
Julie, funny you mention that. I tried drawing my hand from one of your earlier exercises. Let’s just say, I need a lot of practice!!! Can’t wait to see the globe when it is finished.
Julie, your job is really fantastic. Theresa and all you, I want to share good news from Project R&R. According Theodora Capaldo, the Great Ape Protection Act was introduced today by U.S. Representatives Edolphus Towns (D-NY), David Reichert (R-WA), Jim Langevin (D-RI), and Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD.) With strong bi-partisan leadership, the bill seeks to end invasive biomedical research and testing on all great apes in U.S. laboratories and to release all federally owned great apes into permanent sanctuary. God bless them. It is a very important step to ban torture, isn’t?
Theresa, please, check follow link to call your legislator to help pass that bill http://www.releasechimps.org
Thank you so much.
Thanks, Lucia, I will!
Hi, i am so grateful to you all for being such human beings and caring about these creatures. I am a student in Uganda studying fine art and my project for this semester is protecting our animals. I love these creatures so much that i feel so good that some people out there feel the same about them. God bless you all.