Ecowatch: Lessons from Rwanda

Meet Mohuza, ‘the comforter’. He has a name and a story because someone decided he was worth knowing and protecting. — DR JEMILAH MAHMOOD

THE morning fog had not yet lifted when I began the climb to Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park. My lungs burned. My legs protested against every mud-slicked root and hidden rock on the volcanic slopes of the Virunga Massif.

After four hours, I heard a rustle in the undergrowth. Then a silverback mountain gorilla emerged from the mist, enormous and indifferent, while his family moved quietly around him. I sat within metres of them for one hour, the maximum allowed by Rwanda’s strict protocols, and could not find a single word.