What are the risks or benefits to humans for saving the mountain gorilla?
There are no risks – saving a species that lives in a remote volcano chain in East Africa is not going to impact on the human species as a whole. The advantages are great – it is another ecosystem protected and saved – good for the world as a whole. BUT – the local populations struggle, they are impoverished. My argument is that they ought to profit more from the existence of a superb wild ecosystem on their doorstep, however in reality it doesn’t work, partly because the money paid by tourists doesn’t help the local people, although ethnic divisions don’t make work any easier. If you could solve the people problems, saving gorillas would probably be less of a problem.
