Q&A - Dr Hugo Rainey

Published on Wednesday 6 August 2008 22:16

The project director with the Wildlife Conservation Society discusses the challenges the discovery of 125,000 lowland gorillas in the Republic of Congo, as reported in The Scotsman yesterday, present.

How do you think the discovery will affect the public's perception of how threatened gorillas are?

It may sound like a lot of them, and people may think they are no longer at risk and can be removed from the threatened species list.

But if you look at the multiple threats of ebola, deforestation and poaching, people need to realise they are still very much at risk.

How much harder does this discovery make protecting the species?

It will stretch us and we are hoping that new donors will come forward to help with funding. Having said that, they are in areas that are virtually unreachable, which makes them self-protecting, but the problem of the ebola virus is a pressing issue.

Is it difficult to operate in this area of Africa?

Well, unlike the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo has been relatively stable for some years, so there (are not] the same issues with security and that's allowed us to work in most of the areas.

Will funding become an even bigger issue?

There are existing bodies that we can go to and ask for funding, but it is one of the problems non-commercial bodies such as ours has. One of the other options we are looking at is using carbon credit schemes. We want to protect the gorillas' habitat by getting countries to invest in the forests as a way of cutting carbon emissions.