Kinigi, Northern Province: With names coming from longtime foes DR Congo and Uganda, the ‘Hotel Rwanda’ movie, and the whole world community, the 2010 “Kwita Izina” ceremony clearly gives Rwanda a new face on the global platform. As RNA reports from Kinigi, there were more than just gorillas at stake. The whole world named a gorilla in Saturday’s “Kwita Izina”, an annual event where new born mountain gorillas are given names. The event was held at Kinigi in Musanze district, and was also attended by the President of Rwanda, Gen. Paul Kagame.
Hollywood star and guest of honor, the Oscar-nominated US actor Don Cheadle, announced that the name chosen by Internet users across the globe was “Zoya.” Zoya refers to life and light in several languages: it means “shining” in India, “alive” in Greek, and “twilight” in Iranian. Hundreds of people around the world voted for the name by text message, website, and even Twitter.
The name selected by children across the planet and given to another baby gorilla was “WakaWaka”, which means “to light up” in the Swahili language, another guest of honour, acclaimed wildlife photographer Luo Hong, said.
Kwita Izina
Kwita Izina means “naming”, a long held tradition in Rwanda where new born children are given names. The Rwanda Development Board copied this tradition and extended it to naming the new born mountain gorillas every year. Musanze hosts a gorilla-naming ceremony every year, but Rwanda never takes the ceremonies for granted. Rather, each year’s event is a sigh of relief that the animals being named actually exists.
Counting the newly-named, there about 750 mountain gorillas in the world. More than half live in Virunga forest, which straddles Uganda, Rwanda and Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the rest live in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park that lies about 35 kilometres away.
Mountain Gorillas are Endangered Species
In 1963, the legendary zoologist Dian Fossey visited the mountain gorillas that she would later help to protect even till death. Biologists at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) began cataloguing species that face extinction. They put together a “Red List” which puts Rwanda’s mountain gorillas into perspective.
Since the list was put together, over 800 species are known to have perished entirely. The list chronicles the difficulties of keeping over 17,000 other species on the planet though they are at serious risk of disappearing.
Rwanda’s mountain gorillas are a tiny part of that picture. And the list is far from complete. Conservation International, a respected research and advocacy agency in Washington, D.C estimates that one species dies every 20 minutes. While thousands of species have been kept alive in recent decades, millions of others have silently perished.
Humans play a huge role in the destruction of species. We destroy and pollute habitats, over-hunt, over-fish, and contribute to global climate change, which many species can’t adapt to.
This year’s World Environment Day is meant to show how this can change, and Rwanda is seen as a leader in that regard. In attendance alongside Cheadle and Luo Hong, was UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner, who called Rwanda “a pioneer in green economic growth with a true commitment to a cleaner development model”. He said UNEP had “joined forces with partners to contribute to gorilla conservation and provide hundreds of solar lights for Rwandan villagers and schoolchildren”.
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