Saving Mountain Gorillas, and Ourselves

An interesting article in the April edition of the Smithsonian about mountain gorillas.  Mountain gorillas appeared in our collective consciousness with the publication of primatologist Dian Fossey's book entitled "Gorillas in the Mist" (and the film of the same name 5 years later), in which she detailed the plight of these majestic creatures who share 98% of their DNA with mankind.  The fact that her research indicated that gorillas in general, and this sub-species in particular were one of the most maligned animals in the world, was starkly confirmed when she was murdered, not by one of her subjects, but by human poachers whose illegal activity (and murderous treatment of the mountain gorilla) was revealed by Fossey.  One particular poignant quote from her book is

"After more than 2,000 hours of direct observation, I can account for less than 5 minutes of what might be called aggressive behavior". 

Quite a big difference between her research and the commonly held opinion by most people concerning a gorilla's disposition and behavior.

The main point of the article is to provide good news about the mountain gorilla, in that the world population of these animals has increased, perhaps by 4 times, since Fossey began her work in the early 1980's.  While that sounds impressive, we are talking about a population today of roughly 1000 animals, but even that low number, when broken down by the number of fertile females and babies, is enough to move the status of the mountain gorilla from critically endangered to endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.     

How did this come about?

The article cites two main reasons.  First, since animals do not respect national boundaries, the work by conservation groups and the governments of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to establish and link various national parks and reserves to provide the mountain gorilla with a continuous habitat (about 300 square miles) was a good beginning.   But more importantly, those from outside the communities began to allow those villagers who live in proximity of the gorillas to participate in the decisions about how to best protect both the animals and the livelihood of those who depend on the land for survival.  In short, change the dynamic so that the local populations perceived the gorillas in a positive manner as opposed to competitors. 

When a village raises cattle and hunts for bush meat for its survival, and believes that a gorilla will negatively effect those efforts, it is very easy to facilitate the capture and removal of a gorilla.  But when a gorilla guide can earn more than a poacher, or when selling produce to the local lodge which houses tourists is easier than selling it on the streets, or when working at or managing that hotel pays more and is less tenuous than herding cattle, then people will be more willing to protect the reason behind their new economic opportunities.  It becomes a beneficial relationship; a win-win so to speak.

Additionally, as the article plainly states, "Poor people are drawn into insurgent militias for economic reasons.  They just want a better life".  So, providing the villagers with an alternative to illegal and/or terrorist activities for their income, becomes a double win-win as it reduces the violence of the area as well, which is especially important in the DRC which has been ravaged by civil strife for decades.

Which brings us to Sapiens. 

While it is not fair to extrapolate the actions of a handful of villagers in Africa to all of mankind, I don't think it is a stretch to identify our need for security, a better life, or economic advancement as relatively universal desires.  We extol those ambitions via our glorification of individualism and self reliance, despite condemning it in those who find it critical to cross a border to seek it out for themselves and their families.  And, sadly, we too often attach the accumulation of large sums of wealth, wealth beyond the needs of oneself or one's family, as a laudable goal, despite the consequences for many other people that result when too much wealth resides in too few hands.

Still, if we agree that the carrot of an economic uplift can alter perspectives and actions, then can we apply this theory to two pressing situations; battling COVID-19 and addressing climate change.

It is no surprise that almost instantaneously with the beginning of the various decisions by mayors and governors to enact guidelines for social distancing which resulted in the shuttering of businesses, there were those who cried foul, that we can't allow our economy to go down with the virus battling ship.  And while it was easy to discount those objections when they came from the rich and influential, CEO's and political pundits who might suffer economically but not to the point that they would lose their home or stand in a food line, it was easy to understand the everyday person who lives paycheck to paycheck and now faced the very real possibility of not having an income for 2 months. 

How do we apply the lessons of convincing a villager that the gorilla up the hill is an ally when we believe that the gorilla is an invisible germ, or a slowly changing climate?

The coronavirus is an enemy that must be defeated before we can get back to some sense of normalcy.  But the gorilla is not the germ, just as the gorilla was never really an enemy of the villagers, only the scapegoat they used to justify how they behaved.  In fact, the gorilla was an answer to some of their problems all along, if only they had valued the life of a fellow species, and had thought about how preserving that life might help improve their own.

The gorilla that we all face is the process of altering our lifestyles for a while in order to prevent the loss of tens of thousands of Americans, hundreds of thousands of other Earthlings.  The gorilla is the paradigm that makes us believe that we need more of everything, that money is more important than the lives of our parents, older siblings or elderly neighbors, that the economy must be preserved above all, even though we have a history full of cataclysmic economic events from which we have recovered. 

COVID-19 is just the latest disaster that we are encountering that should be reminding us that we have only one planet, that we need to work in concert with each other to maintain its health, and that battling and killing over pieces of land is like two fleas fighting to determine who owns the dog. 

Similarly, climate change itself is not the gorilla that we fear but the changes, the paradigm shifts that we will need to embrace that worries us.  Are we noticing that limited travel has produced a tangible effect on the air quality over the Western nations?  Does that mean we should stop travelling when this is all over?  Of course not, that is the problem with false choices.  We can have a clean environment and still travel, we just need to embrace the changes in our development and use of energy that will provide the best of both worlds.  We need to counter those who argue that changing over to a more environmentally friendly energy policy will be detrimental to our economy with the benefits that those changes will bring, just as many villagers learned to embrace the idea that saving the mountain gorilla would benefit them.       

I am reading a book which I will post about in the near future, which reminded me that humankind has only been around for a blink of an eye when compared to our planet, not to mention the universe.  Both will go on without us, should we fail to begin acting with a much bigger perspective.  If nothing else, saving mountain gorillas reminds us that if it wasn't for human intervention, mountain gorillas may be extinct today, and that if it wasn't for human activity, mountain gorillas would never have been in danger to begin with.  Likewise, we can be the savior or cause the demise of our own species as well.