The Mountain Gorilla reserve is located in the Virunga volcanos Conservation Area, in the Western Rift Valley of Africa, where the borders of Rwanda, Uganda, and Congo (formerly Zaire) join together. This is a part of the African Great Lake District, in the western branch of the Great Rift Valley. The Virunga includes eight volcanoes, both dormant and active, the highest rising to over 14,000 feet. The steep slopes are heavily forested, and provide one of only two remaining habitats for the mountain gorilla. The entire area is protected within the Parc National des Volcans in Rwanda, the Parc National des Virunga in Congo, and the Mgahinga Gorilla National Park in Uganda. These three parks together make up the single contiguous Gorilla reserve.
The eight volcanoes of the Virunga Mountains are:
Karisimbi
- 14,787 ft. or 4,507 m.
Mikeno - 14,557
ft. or 4,437 m.
Muhavura -
13,868 ft. or 4,227 m.
Visoke - 12,175
ft. or 3,711 m.
Sabinio - 11,922
ft. or 3,634 m.
Nyiragongo
- 11,358 ft. or 3,462 m.
Mgahinga -
11,397 ft. or 3,474 m.
Nyamlagira
- 10,049 ft. or 3,063 m.
Nyirangongo and Nyamlagira are both located on the Congolese (Zaire) side of the chain and are still highly active, having erupted many times throughout the twentieth century, primarily from new vents and fissures that explode on the slopes of the mountains. Nyiragongo erupted in 1977, and again 1982. Nyamlagira erupted several times in the 1980's, and was most recently active throughout the period from 1991 through 1993. Catastrophic eruptions in 2002 destroyed nearly half of the city of Goma, including the airport, and killed hundreds of people.
After World War One the area became a Belgian protectorate, and hunters ventured into the area to shoot the gorillas that had been discovered there in 1902 by a German Army officer. One such hunter was American Carl Akeley of the American Museum of Natural History. He was so impressed by the beauty of the mountain gorillas domain that, in 1925, he persuaded King Albert I of Belgium to create Africa's first national park to protect them. This is the origin of the Virunga Volcanos Conservation Area of today.
In the 1950s, the Belgian government converted a large section on the south and east side of the park up to an elevation of about 3050m (10,000 ft) to plantations devoted to the cash crop pyrethrum, which is a natural insecticide. Ordinary farms now occupy the same area, indicating that the remaining forest land up to a similar elevation around the Virungas could be converted to farms in the future.
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