August 8.
Last week, at the request of the new Government, a disaster relief
team from the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA)
travelled to Rwanda to assess the impact of the civil war on livestock
and wildlife, including the world-famous ''Gorillas in the Mist''. We
found that livestock had been totally devastated by the war and that the
Volcano Veterinary Centre, where the endangered mountain gorillas are
studied, had been completely vandalised.
Throughout the country our team was struck by the eerie absence of
cows, goats, or even poultry, normally found everywhere in African
countries. As food shortages grew, people had slaughtered what livestock
were left or taken them with them when they fled.
No food animals remained in Kigali, though, on the road from Goma in
Zaire, some of the returning refugees were leading goats, cows, and a
few sheep, probably the only remaining livestock in the country.
With no-one to harvest the ripening crops, this shortage will mean
continuing starvation and reliance on relief aid. It will also have a
devastating effect on wildlife, as the only food available will be
poached ''bush meat'', which may even threaten the mountain gorillas.
Gorilla tourism earns the country $6m to #8m a year in foreign
exchange and the new Environment Minister told WSPA he hoped the vet
centre could be reopened as soon as possible. WSPA will help restock and
rebuild the centre and will supply vaccines and drugs to prevent
outbreaks of disease in livestock.
Readers who would like to support WSPA's disaster relief work can
write to WSPA, 2 Langley Lane, London SW8 1TJ.
Hilary Cross,
WSPA Press Officer.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article