The seventh gorilla naming ceremony commonly known as Kwita Izina will be held on 18 June 2011 at Kinigi, Musanze District. During the ceremony, a total of 22 gorilla infants, This includes a set of twins born in February this year,a rare occurrence for an endangered species which counts fewer than 800 individuals.<\/strong><\/p>\n Mountain gorillas are Rwanda\u2019s main tourist attraction and accounted for 90 percent of tourism revenue in 2010.<\/p>\n The naming ceremony will also mark the country\u2019s seventh year tourism anniversary to be marked under the theme community development for sustained conservation,<\/p>\n Clare Akamanzi<\/span> RDB<\/span> Chief Operative Officer, observed that there has been a steady increase in tourism revenues. She pointed out that the industry made a total of US$200 million in 2010 while projections for this year are estimated to be US$216 million.<\/p>\n She further pointed out that there has been a 26 percent growth in the gorilla population since the last census in 2003. The growth is partly attributed to the conversion of poachers into productive activities such as agriculture. \u201cThe transformation has also improved security in the parks at the same time improved their livelihoods,|\u201d she remarked.<\/p>\n Prior to the naming ceremony, RDB<\/span> shall recognise<\/span> the efforts of the community in contributing to the welfare of our wildlife and its conservation. The celebration of Kwita<\/span> Izina<\/span> will be preceded by a weeklong<\/span> activities which includes Kwita<\/span> Izina<\/span> national cycling tour, conservation conference, launching of community projects as well as a community party known as “Igitaramo<\/span>“. The activities consist of refurbishing of health centres<\/span>, schools and funding of cooperatives specialising<\/span> on tourism products. RDB<\/span> would facilitate workshops in Kiningi<\/span> to train handicraft makers on how to produce quality goods market them to tourists. In total, RDB<\/span> would inject Frw<\/span> 1billion<\/span> to support community projects surrounding national parks.<\/p>\n RDB\u2019s<\/span> head of tourism and conservation Rica Rwigamba<\/span> encouraged locals to visit gorillas and abandon the erroneous mindset that this is meant for tourists. \u201cWe\u2019re doing our best to encourage locals, we charge them Frw<\/span> 20,000 while foreigners pay US$500,\u201d she commented.<\/p>\n According<\/span> to Rwigamba<\/span>, Mountain gorillas are Rwanda\u2019s main tourist attraction and accounted for 90 percent of tourism revenue in 2010.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n In the 2010 census, the total number of mountain gorillas has increased by a quarter over the past seven years to reach more than 780 individuals. Two thirds of them are found in the Virunga<\/span> massif, which straddles Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Rwanda has recorded only five twin mountain gorilla births over the past 40 years.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" RDB set to release Rwf 1 billion for community projects<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[294],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-abraham-rumanzi"],"bylines":[{"id":294,"name":"Abraham Rumanzi","slug":"abraham-rumanzi","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":294,"name":"Abraham Rumanzi","slug":"abraham-rumanzi","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=222"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}