Only Good News · 4 hours ago

Kwita Izina: Rwanda Welcomes Baby Mountain Gorillas in Naming Ceremony | Ogn Daily

When Rwanda began naming baby mountain gorillas in 2005, borrowing from the Rwandan tradition of naming a newborn child about a week after birth, something shifted in the relationship between local communities and a species that had dwindled to fewer than 250 individuals. The annual Kwita Izina ceremony has since named 460 gorillas and helped fund 740 community projects - schools, health centers, clean water - by sharing trekking permit revenue with the people who live alongside the parks. What makes this work where so many conservation efforts fail is something almost disarmingly simple: a name. As Prime Minister Justin Nsengiyumva said during the ceremony, "A name for us is more than a celebration. It is a promise" - and it turns out that a promise, extended to another species, can be the foundation of its survival.