When Bill Weber and Amy Vedder arrived in Rwanda to study mountain gorillas with Dian Fossey, the gorilla population was teetering toward extinction. Poaching was rampant, but it was loss of habitat that most endangered the gorillas. Weber and Vedder realized that the gorillas were doomed unless something was done to save their forest home. They helped found the Mountain Gorilla Project, which would inform Rwandans about the gorillas and the importance of conservation, while at the same time establishing an ecotourism project -- one of the first anywhere in a rainforest -- to bring desperately needed revenue to Rwanda. Today the population of mountain gorillas is the highest it has been since the 1960s, and there is new hope for the species' fragile future even as the people of Rwanda strive to overcome ethnic and political differences.

Bill Weber has worked for 25 years in the field of international conservation. He lived in Africa for nine years, where he and his wife, Amy Vedder, helped to establish the famous Mountain Gorilla Project in Rwanda and several other park and forest protection initiatives across the Congo Basin.

From the Archives: This live interview was recorded on  December 13,  2001 on the nationally syndicated radio program, hosted by Laura Lee . See more at www.lauralee.com 

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