Mountain Gorilla Protection: A Geomatics Approach
 
"Gorillas in the data base"
 
The 1994 Disaster
 
 
Goma. Photograph by Jack Lockwood, U.S. Geological Survey, August 22, 1994.
 
 
 
 
 
The  Kibumba refugee camp, with the Gorilla reserve in the background.
This camp contained over 250,000 people.
 
The Rwandan refugee crisis put severe pressure on the park. Nearly 1 million refugees were camped in the area around Goma and surrounding the park. The Kibumba camp alone had 250,000 people adjacent to the reserve. This had devastating effects on the park.
 
 
This graphic shows the location of major refugee camps around Goma and on the border of the park. Over 250,000 refugees were in the Kibumba camp alone, right on the border of the park.
 
More than 500 sq. km (more than a third) of the park was found to be affected by either wood collecting or poaching activities. Of these, 78 sq. km. of forests were severely degraded and 18 sq. km. were completely denuded of vegetation.
 
During the years 1994 to 1996, while the Rwandan refugees from the camps and other individuals plundered the Virunga National Park, an estimated 36 million trees were cut within the park boundary. Another way to view the problem is that some 410 to 770 tons of forest products (mainly wood for fuel) were removed daily. At the height of the crisis, between 25,000 and 30,000 people were taking wood from the park each day. Most of this was for firewood for cooking the disaster relief foods that were distributed in the camps. The United Nations High Commisioner for Refugees used our Space Shuttle Imagery in determining the areas of deforestation (see image below).

 
SIR-C image with refugee camps and deforested areas shown
 
 
Environmental Monitoring of Refugee Camps using High Resolution Satellite Imagery (large 12 pp. pdf file)

Read a  paper on the environmental impact of the refugee crisis

See a pdf poster on remote sensing of the camps.

2002 Volcanic Eruption

The Nyiragongo volcano erupted on January 17, 2002, ejecting a large cloud of smoke and ash high into the sky and spewing lava down three sides of the volcano.  The last major eruption in 1977 killed several hundred people and caused significant damage in and around Goma. A chaotic civil war, with neighboring states backing rival factions, has raged in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 1997.

This most recent eruption caused great damage to the city of Goma and triggering another refugee crisis on the borders of the reserve. Over 500,000 people were displaced and about 30%  of the city of Goma, including the downtown district and airport, was destroyed. This is one of Africa's most dangerous volcanos. The Mountain Gorilla population live on the dormant volcanos to the east, and have not been immediately impacted, but the displacement of so many refugees and resulting political instability are cause for alarm. The eruption killed over 100 people and destroyed over 12,000 homes.

The image below was acquired by the NASA MODIS  (Moderate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) instrument in space about 5 hours after the beginning of the eruption. The white volcanic ash plume is clearly visible rising to the west above lake Kivu. Cloud cover is in yellow (note the gorilla reserve is totally cloud covered in this image).

 

 

The satellite image below from the ASTER Imager shows hot red volcanic lava flowing into Lake Kivu through the city of Goma. Lava is shown in red, the city of Kivu is in gray.

Image courtesy NASA/JPL

Refugees fleeing Goma

Image courtesy ICRC

Read a Red Cross report on the situation

 
 
 
  

 

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For more information contact Scott Madry

 

or the Diane Fossey Gorilla Fund