Students Plant Trees for Conservation
Category: Art of Conservation (AoC), Rwanda's Park & Tourism | Date: May 05 2009 | By: Julie
As part of AoC’s efforts to teach the children living around Parc National des Volcans about conservation, each of our 150 students planted a seedling in groves around their schools. The seedlings aren’t meant to be food for wild animals that live in the park. Instead, they’ll be used primarily for soil conservation. Soil erosion is a big problem in hilly Rwanda, where nearly every available slope has been cultivated for agriculture. Once the students’ trees mature - which won’t take long in this wet, equatorial climate - their roots will act to hold the soil in place. They’ll also provide habitat for birds and insects like bees, which provide honey the communities can harvest to feed their families.
Below is a video made during our tree planting week set to the tune of “Sow A Little,” by New York-based musicians KaiserCartel. This is a commissioned piece made for our project. Enjoy!
Photograph by Molly Feltner 2009.
The beginning of a little forest. Photograph by Molly Feltner 2009.
Celebrating the hard work. Photograph by Molly Feltner 2009.
Tags: children, conservation, gorillas, local community, planting trees
Staying Healthy: Public Health connects with Wild Animal Health
Category: Art of Conservation (AoC), Rwanda's Park & Tourism | Date: Mar 03 2009 | By: Julie
Our students and their families live meters away from the boundary wall of Volcanoes National Park.
Endangered mountain gorillas, forest elephants, forest buffaloes, and golden monkeys are their neighbors and the relationship is not always amicable.
My project has the opportunity to shed light on the interrelation of all living things during our classes with primary school-aged students - some of whom only feel disdain toward their fellow primate, the mountain gorilla.
Staying Healthy, our current unit, offers why we want to stay healthy - both mentally and physically - and the hows and whys to Stop Spreading Germs and Hand-Washing Rules.
Today we continue with Keeping Our Teeth Healthy.
My dentist friends in Des Moines, Iowa donated brushes and paste. Thank you again Drs. Joey, Dan, and Jeff.
Four students at a time sit in front of mirrors and brush their teeth and tongue for 3 minutes.
Students remain serious during their efforts in staying healthy and clean.
Class includes discussions on the traditional dental care methods, or more appropriately the only means available at present for most of these kids. A twig is a fine option when buying a modern toothbrush is beyond the family’s financial capacity. One end of the twig is at a point for picking the teeth. The other end is chewed in order to produce fibers for brushing.
Using a twig as a toothbrush isn’t the funny thing…not brushing your teeth is.
Chichen Itza - No Gorillas Here
Category: Art of Conservation (AoC), MGVP, Rwanda's Park & Tourism | Date: Dec 30 2008 | By: Julie
Hi Sheryl - Great to hear from you. Keep up the great work you do in providing us with a lot of information on conservation issues and so much more on your blog at Please Do Not Tap on the Glass. Thanks!
The Virunga Volcanoes, home to the endangered mountain gorillas, is an UNESCO World Heritage Site and just outside of this protected area in Rwanda is where our project operates.
I had the opportunity to visit another World Heritage Site today - in Mexico. I - and a thousand other tourists - looked in awe at the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza which are located in the northern center of the Yucatan Peninsula.
“El Castillo” (the castle) is the massive Temple of Kukulkan. The Mayans began construction at this site in 460 B.C. using limestone predominately.
This particular Mayan site is 2000 square miles. Chichen Itza can be translated to mouth of the well.
Sculpted limestone panels form the walls at the Great Ball Court.
I looked for spider monkeys for my non-human primate fix, but I did not spot any of these critically endangered new world monkeys.
The jaguar and snakes played important roles in Mayan’s highly advanced civilization of cosmologists.
I asked the woodcarver pictured above if I may have a look at his carving tools to compare them to those used by the Rwandan woodcarvers. He showed me the knife you see here - what is absent is the machete the carvers back in Rwanda so heavily rely upon.
I ran into Jean-Paul Lukusa, the lab manager for the MGVP, click here for more on MGVP at Gorilla Doctors, before I left for the US and told him I was going to Mexico for vacation. His eyes lit up as he put in a request for percussion instruments and shakers.
I’m bringing you a gift, Jean-Paul!
There are many great books on Mayan civilization, archeology, etc… as I am no expert on these subjects. I hope you get a chance to visit and/or learn more about this fascinating culture.
Let’s Dance!: Part 2, Rwambibi Does the Mountain Gorilla
Category: Art of Conservation (AoC), Rwanda's Park & Tourism, art | Date: Nov 27 2008 | By: Julie
Mountain Gorilla Tracker Leonard RWAMBIBI is our guest visitor for the day and believe me he puts on a great show!
His three children, Angelique MUKESHIMANA (featured in the previous post), Gakobwa UWAMARIYA and Claude HITIMANA (all participants in AoC’s conservation learning class) laugh along with the other students as Leonard acts out gorilla and trackers behavior during the habituation process of wild mountain gorillas.
I remember my dad always doing fun things while my siblings and I were growing up and for that matter he was putting on great fun during his entire life. I think you can clearly see how Angelique, Gakobwa, Claude and the entire classroom of kids experienced a huge amount of pleasure when RWAMBIBI came to class and DANCED THE GORILLA. Who said learning can’t be amazingly FUN?
RWAMBIBI - the kids love you and we all learn so much from you!
Let’s Dance!: Part 1, the Turuwa
Category: Art of Conservation (AoC), MGVP, Rwanda's Park & Tourism, art | Date: Nov 27 2008 | By: Julie
Angelique MUKESHIMANA and Vestine MUKANDUTIYE dance the Turuwa, a traditional children’s game, as we incorporate Rwandan culture into today’s drawing lesson.
Students use watercolors, crayons and oil pastels.
Click here to learn more about the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project.
For more information on ORTPN, please click here.
Coming up Let’s Dance!: Part 2. Meet Angelique’s father as he stops by to chat with the children. He could be one of the coolest guys in town.
Alice, a daughter of an anti-poaching task force member
Category: Art of Conservation (AoC), Rwanda's Park & Tourism, art | Date: Nov 24 2008 | By: Julie
Carole S, Sosthene, Amy, and Jen at Handkerchief Project, we appreciate your comments and interest! Thanks for getting in touch.
Douglas B., wow, thank you for your generous donation of $250.00 to the project and $25.00 to Wildlife Direct! This really helps us as we prepare for an exciting and busy 2009!
In 2007, we asked a primary school headmaster named Laurent if we may hold one of our conservation learning classes at his school - a school located right next to the border of National Volcanos Park, (PNV), which was, by the way, not too long ago protected park land before recent human encroachment. We made a request to Laurent: please enroll 50 children who have parents or relatives presently working in conservation. We knew this would not be a difficult request for Laurent to fulfill because the school is situated nearly next door to the Park Headquarters and park staff and conservationists flock here to work with visiting gorilla trekkers or to sign in for field research in the PNV.
With classes in full swing we arrived at our technical drawing lesson and Eric, AoC’s art instructor, encouraged the kids to really look at the models and draw the figure and head in proportion. Once the pencil drawings were completed, Eric directed the students to try different mediums and have fun with the drawings. The kids came up with fantastic pictures.
Alice TUYISHIME’s father is a member of the National Volcanos Park Anti-Poaching Task Force. You will find below Alice’s wonderful drawings.
And this is Alice!
I mentioned earlier in the post that the primary school Alice attends is located on what used to be protected forest of National Volcanos Park. Last night I read an article in the October - December 2008 issue of Conservation Magazine titled
‘Living on the Edge, Human population soars near protected areas’
by Scott Norris presenting a study which suggests that in both Latin America and Africa people have increasingly moved out of rural areas to protected area buffer zones. The article continues with possible reasons such as buffer zones may provide new economic opportunities as well as offer access to forests with firewood, bushmeat, and clean water. Does this mean that reserve establishment with the goals of habitat and biodiversity protection will be even more challenging?
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