Wildlife Conservation Association – Rwanda

RWANDA WILDLIFE CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION (RWCA)

The RWCA drives conservation awareness in communities surrounding key grey crowned crane areas. Founded by Rwandans who come from and understand local communities and their challenges, their mission is to provide sustainable solutions to critical wildlife conservation issues in Rwanda and East Africa.

To date the RWCA, with the support of the CCFA, has been responsible for:

Creating environmental youth clubs.
Training 9 mentors to guide the youth club members.
Planting 5, 525 indigenous trees from 19 different tree species around the Rugezi Marsh.
A two-day training workshop with a team of 30 conservation champions who will raise awareness around blue crowned cranes within their respective communities around the country.

Future plans for the RWCA include:

6 educational events at schools along with the distribution of the RWCA conservation comic book, which aims to touch the lives of 4, 800 children.
Two workshops for local leaders around Rugezi Marsh and Akagera National Park.
A third national crane consensus to commence in August 2019.

Comic book event at a school near Nyabarongo wetland

Educating communities at the tree planting event

Rwanda Wildlife Conservation Association conservation comic book

PROJECT UPDATE

RWCA has continued to carry out community education and engagement to conserve Rwanda’s endangered Grey Crowned Cranes. They work towards the long-term goal of ensuring there are no Grey Crowned Cranes in captivity in Rwanda. Below are some recent activities that the project has implemented:

6 comic book events have been held in primary schools, with two taking place near Rugezi marsh- a key habitat for the crane. RWCA distributed 2,717 comic books, reaching 5,784 children. In the events, RWCA team members talk to children about Grey Crowned Cranes and the need to protect them and their habitat. One of the key messages is teaching children that it is not okay to take crane eggs or chicks and that cranes should not be kept in captivity.

RWCA organised two workshops for local leaders and local security around Rugezi Marsh (202 participants) and Akagera National Park (162 participants). The workshops involved different presentations to refresh their knowledge about Grey Crowned Cranes and the importance of protecting the marshland/natural areas and to discuss the different challenges they face and possible community solutions to those problems.

RWCA successfully implemented the third national crane census. They had teams of staff and volunteers visiting the field all over the country to sight cranes as well as an aerial survey taking place over Akagera National Park and Rugezi marsh. The results were highky encouraging with 748 cranes sighted in total, up from 487 and 459 in previous years.

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Nearly all the countries in the world have promised to improve the planet and the lives of its citizens by 2030.

They’ve committed themselves to 17 life-changing goals, outlined by the UN in 2015. These Global Goals, also known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), include ending extreme poverty, giving people better healthcare, and achieving equality for women. The aim is for all countries to work together to ensure no one is left behind.

This project is aligned with the following goals:

Akagera Fisheries Project – Rwanda

AKAGERA FISHERIES

The Akagera National Park in Rwanda (managed by African Parks) initiated a co-operative (co-op) fisheries project on Lake Gishanda, which lies just outside the park.

The park works alongside the local co-op to support the development of a commercial business model that identifies scalable aquaculture opportunities in the region. The project aims to benefit a minimum of 120 families within the co-op, as well as surrounding communities through income generation, employment opportunities and food security.

The CCFA invested R1.5 million into the Akagera Fisheries project in order to ensure that the goal the project aims to achieve will not be hindered by financial insufficiencies

Akagera National Park - Rwanda - Scott Ramsay/African Parks

Lake Gishanda was completely devoid of fish since the genocide experienced by the country in 1994, meaning that an important source of livelihood and income was expelled from its inhabitants. This Fisheries project is a beacon of hope for the people of Rwanda; as the fish introduced into the lake through the project started to breed, the resulting business scaled up and began to supply fish to the local hotel industry, including the Mantis Akagera Game Lodge. The business plan came to full fruition within a few years and the CCFA supported African Parks until this business became fully sustainable.