Mountain Gorillas - Gorilla News Reports Roundup

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda arrived in Tokyo on November 6th for a three day official visit to Japan.

President Kagame received a courtesy call from Mr Osamu Watanabe, CEO and Chairman of the Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO). JETRO facilitates trade between Japan and Africa by helping Japanese companies to export and also assist foreign companies to enter the Japanese market. Mr Watanabe congratulated President Kagame for establishing stability in Rwanda and for the current efforts in economic development and reconstruction.
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He also noted that tourism was a promising sector in Rwanda, with the ability to attract Japanese tourists visiting the region, to experience the mountain gorilla tracking and other eco-tourism attractions.

Visit allAfrica.com for the full story.

And on the role of Mountain Gorillas in endangered species tourism, The East African Magazine reports that...

Uganda, Rwanda , and the Democratic Republic of Congo have agreed to harmonise fees charged for gorilla tracking permits in order not to lose revenue to the migratory behaviour of the gorillas across the two countries' borders.

The countries want to review and standardise gorilla tracking permit fees to $500 for foreign non residents and $475 for foreign residents as of July 1, 2007, to back the plan to manage the migratory trans-boundary gorillas.

The three countries charge different fees, which makes it difficult to share revenue when the primates crossed borders.

Visit The East African Magazine for the full story.

National Geographic reports that a form of HIV has been found in wild gorillas in western central Africa.

This is the first time the AIDS-causing virus has been detected in primates other than chimps and humans.

It is also the "first time someone has looked at HIV infection in wild living gorillas," said Martine Peeters, a virologist at the French government's Institut de Recherche Pour le Développement and at the University of Montpellier, France.
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Researchers did not survey the mountain gorilla subspecies, which lives in East Africa.

Visit National Geographic for the full story.

Finally, visit the Bronx Zoo website in New York for their Great Gorilla Forest page which includes pictures of gorillas (specifically their Western Lowland Gorillas). They also have a very short video on their Virtual Tour.