The effort will put remote sensing technology into the hands of field scientists and trackers working to protect the country's mountain gorilla population. The animals, made famous by the work of conservationist Dian Fossey and the film Gorillas in the Mist , have suffered badly during the region's recent conflict. Many of the primates were killed for food or sport by armed insurgents or became helpless accidental victims of itchy trigger fingers. Just as threatening was the immense damage done to their forest environment by the tens of thousands of refugees foraging for food and firewood. Today, just over 600 mountain gorillas survive in the region, which mainly consists of the lush slopes of the Virunga volcano chain.
Security is still an issue.
After several gorilla-watching tourists were murdered by bandits last year, conservationists must now travel under armed escort. The main thrust of the project is to create an intricate database of gorilla numbers and the way in which their habitat is changing. By tying field-gathered data into the Internet, results will be instantly available to researchers all over the world. Because we are a field conservation organization, it is imperative that we aggressively pursue more efficient ways to collect data, then have experts available to analyse that data, especially as it applies to habitat. The first applications of the new resources, therefore, will be to define the status quo of the animals and their environment, explains Nickolas Faust, principal research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute.