Transboundary conservation in the greater Virunga landscape: Its importance for landscape species

Several of the protected areas within the Albertine Rift are contiguous with protected areas across international boundaries. This is particularly true for the Greater Virunga Landscape, which includes Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and ten contiguous protected areas in Uganda and Rwanda. The larger bodied animal species that occur in this landscape have moved freely across what are now international borders for millennia and some species probably need this larger landscape if their populations are to remain viable. An analysis was carried out to identify these 'landscape species' and the importance of this cross-border movement is assessed in the light of civil wars in the region. For 13 years the International Gorilla Conservation Programme has been working in the Virunga Volcanoes and Bwindi Impenetrable National Park to foster transboundary collaboration. The results have shown that regular meetings and planning of activities by wardens can lead to better conservation even with countries at war with each other. More recently the Wildlife Conservation Society has started a programme to support transboundary collaboration further north in the landscape so that all contiguous protected areas are working together. The results show that mountain gorilla numbers have on the whole increased during the past 25 years despite civil wars in the region and this can largely be attributed to their ability to generate income from tourism but also to enhanced transboundary collaboration between Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. Ungulate numbers on the other hand have declined drastically since the 1960s but it is shown that the connectivity in the landscape has been important in reducing the impact of the civil war on elephants.