Kwita Izina: Rwanda Welcomes Baby Mountain Gorillas in Naming Ceremony
Once a seemingly doomed species, mountain gorillas are starting to thrive again thanks to a clever cultural initiative.
In the early 1980s, less than 250 mountain gorillas inhabited the Virunga mountain range, an area crossed by three national borders: Rwanda, Uganda and the DR Congo. Today, it’s home to more than 600, out of around 1,000 mountain gorillas worldwide.
The naming ceremony itself is called Kwita Izina, and is modelled directly on the Rwandan tradition of naming a newborn child about a week after birth. Rangers and vets track every birth in the area and then once a year dignitaries, scientists, community members and the occasional footballer or Hollywood celebrity are invited to name a gorilla, in front of a crowd, at the base of the volcanoes. The ceremonies have been running since 2005 and have named 460 gorillas. To be clear, the babies are not hauled out of the jungle for these celebrations, photographs of each one is deemed sufficient.
Click to enlarge | All images credit: RDB
This is clever policy with a ritual wrapped around it. A gorilla trekking permit costs $1,500, and Rwanda has been sharing that revenue since Kwita Izina launched, giving a cut to communities on the park’s boundaries. Their share started at 5 percent, but when permit prices jumped from $750 to $1,500 in 2017, the government doubled it to 10 percent. The scheme has now funded 740 community projects worth about $5.9 million, including schools, health centres, clean water and housing, with roughly $1.4 million expected this year alone.
A lot of conservation programs ask people to protect something abstract: a statistic, an ecosystem they’ll never see up close. But baby gorillas with names are relatable. You can track them and protect them. Instead of wildlife managed from a distance, they’re part of the local economic and cultural fabric. As Prime Minister Justin Nsengiyumva said during the ceremony: “A name for us is more than a celebration. It is a promise.”
Some of the names at this year's Kwita Izina include: Ishakwe (‘Determination’), Mukondo (‘Starting Point/Source’), Ngabonzima (‘Protector’), Ngoga (‘Brave/Courageous’) and Ntwarane (‘United in Pursuit of a Common Goal’).
