Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International

Description

The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund is a nonprofit working to save gorillas and the ecosystems they live in.

Dian Fossey founded it in 1978, originally as the Digit Fund, to finance anti-poaching patrols after poachers killed her favorite gorilla. It grew out of the Karisoke Research Center she had set up in 1967 in Rwanda’s Virunga mountains, and was renamed the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International in 1992. The fund now protects endangered mountain gorillas and Grauer’s gorillas.

It runs gorilla protection, scientific research, education and community programs in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park and in the Nkuba Conservation Area in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Its research at Karisoke is one of the longest-running studies of any primate species. The fund trains and mentors African researchers and scientists to build local conservation leadership, and works with a team of more than 400 staff, most based in Rwanda and Congo.

In Rwanda, its Ellen DeGeneres Campus, opened in 2022, serves as a base for conservation work in Africa. The organization is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.