Six tourists stood in silence watching the gorillas as they grazed in trampled vegetation, surrounded by a cloud of flies. Then the Silverback, his huge face turned unblinkingly towards us, led his family into deeper bush. There are just 630 mountain gorillas alive in the world. Half live in the Virunga Range, which straddles Uganda, Rwanda and former Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo. Some primatologists believe these are a separate sub-species.
Mountain gorillas live in one of the most densely populated and turbulent regions of Africa.
The residents are more concerned with survival than in preserving biodiversity for future generations. In Uganda, the effects of population pressure have been less spectacular. Gorilla tourism, as conceived in Uganda, is a compromise between government, the community and conservationists. When President Yoweri Museveni seized power in 1986, Uganda had been through 15 years of dictatorial rule. The economy was shattered.