Art for Gorillas

In a country where more than 90% of the population depends on agricultural pursuits, the Art of Conservation project moves from Unit 1: Staying Healthy to Unit 2: Introduction to Agronomy in order to educate the kids about land use and the pressures this densely populated country has on protected areas.

AoC’s Vincent RUKUNDO, a final year student at the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry (ISAE – Busogo), jumps to it with the basics of agronomy.

Vincent asks our young and bright-eyed students:
What is agronomy?
What is the relationship between agronomy and conservation?
What is subsistence farming?
What is soil and how is it formed?
And so on.

Vincent gives a moisture content reading demonstration. I brought back a few of these not so scientific instruments from the US. Kids are excited to check it out.

It may be a bit difficult for our students living in the Northern Province of Rwanda to grasp the population density – one of the highest in Africa. Vincent explains better by suggesting that an average of 850 people in Rwanda live in one square mile. The average density in the US is 80 people per square mile.

Since the population density is so great, the land near Volcanoes National Park has in the past already been taken for agricultural uses – especially during the mayhem of the genocide and civil wars. Now, there is talk of actually reclaiming some of that lost land and returning it to the protected area of the park.

Kids use soil testing instruments for reading the moisture content and soil pH.

Rwanda is moving to increase agricultural production and hopefully on the foundations of environmental, economic and social sustainability.