At sunrise on Mount Muhabura, where Uganda meets Rwanda, Dr Benard Ssebide of Gorilla Doctors pushes through thickets of vines and brambles to find the Nyakagezi gorilla family before tourists arrive. Soon, nine of the great apes appear in a forest clearing: a silverback calmly chewing thistle, a youngster swinging on a vine, others picking wild blackberries.
It is a sight that seemed impossible in the 1970s and 80s, when fewer than 250 mountain gorillas survived in the wild. Their forests were shrinking fast to agriculture and logging, and extinction seemed inevitable. Thanks to decades of conservation – even through war and genocide – the population has rebounded to more than 1,000, and the subspecies was reclassified in 2018 from “critically endangered” to “endangered.” Another increase is expected when the next count is published in 2026.
The turnaround has been costly: more than 220 rangers have died protecting Virunga national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where militias remain active. And new dangers are emerging. Respiratory diseases passed from humans have become a major risk, prompting strict mask and hygiene rules for tourists and researchers.
Tourism, however, has been a cornerstone of the gorillas’ survival. In Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable forest, visitors pay $800 each for a tightly controlled hour with habituated gorilla families. The revenue supports the entire national park system and returns 20% directly to local communities. Rwanda has gone further, charging $1,500 per visitor and promoting high-end eco-tourism, with luxury hotels and an annual baby-naming festival for gorillas, Kwita Izina, which this year celebrated 40 newborns.
Communities that were once displaced now share in the benefits. Farmers like Buhutu Steven, who grows tea on land bordering a Batwa reserve, say their livelihoods are linked to protecting the gorillas. “When they habituated gorillas, life here improved,” he explains.
Yet the very success of conservation raises a new question: what if the gorillas run out of space? Rwanda has pledged to expand Volcanoes national park by nearly a quarter, and Ugandan officials are studying the gorillas’ “carrying capacity.” Researchers are watching for signs of territorial conflict that might signal overcrowding.
For now, experts like Ssebide believe the forest can sustain far more gorillas than today. “The records indicate there were many more gorillas here before. I think these areas could take three times as many,” he says. But he acknowledges the uncertainty.
The survival of the mountain gorilla is one of conservation’s rare success stories. Whether humans can balance booming populations of both apes and people in east Africa’s fragile highland forests will decide what comes next.
