The group has its roots in a meeting recently held at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany (list of participants). Although the meeting was initially conceived as a forum for reporting new research results, it very rapidly morphed into a brainstorming session on how to deal with commercial hunting of gorillas, which everyone agreed has reached crisis proportions. There was a very strong consensus that two things have to happen if viable populations of western gorillas are to survive into the next decade: 1) that conservation donors and the public at large need to be forcefully educated about the seriousness of the problem, and 2) that the proportion of the conservation budget spent on law enforcement needs to be immediately and drastically increased. We also agreed that the longer term priority should be turning paper parks into real parks, with the key issues in that effort being sustainable funding (e.g. Trust Funds) and building of national capacity to manage parks.

Each of us at WesternGorilla feels a moral obligation to work towards the conservation of these amazing animals. We also feel that our hundreds of years of collective frontline experience lend both credibility and moral authority to our calls for a change in conservation strategy towards more investment in law enforcement. We hope that by speaking unambiguously and in unison our voice will cut through the cacophony and catalyze some action. In addition, we are hoping that as a small, informal alliance of researchers we can act more nimbly and speak more emphatically then would be possible for a large conservation organization. To that end we have drafted a press release, a brief set of recommendations, and a detailed strategy laying out what we see as the best path for Western gorilla conservation. We are attempting to draw media attention to the situation and have set up this website to educate you in the public on what you can do to help save Western Gorillas.