Yahoo News 5 Jun 10;
KINIGI, Rwanda (AFP) – Rwanda hosted UN World Environment Day Saturday with a ceremony to name 11 endangered baby mountain gorillas in which Internet users worldwide were for the first time able to take part.
The annual naming has been held since 2005 in Rwanda, but this was the first year in which people have been able to give their online suggestions for naming two of the infant apes.
The ceremony took place Saturday at the foot of the mist-capped Virunga volcanoes that straddle the borders of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and which are home to about half of the world's 700 mountain gorillas.
Hollywood star and guest of honour, 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.
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.
The Rwanda Development Board organised this year's ceremony to coincide with World Environment Day after the country was chosen by the United Nations Environment Programme to host the 2010 event.
In attendance alongside Cheadle and Luo Hong were Rwandan President Paul Kagame and 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".
A statement from UNEP said this year's World Environment Day raised more than 85,000 dollars for gorilla conservation in addition to the funding for solar lighting.
The ceremony is "part of an effort to heighten awareness of the situation of the mountain gorillas of Rwanda and of the region that are endangered," the Rwanda Development Board said.
Previous naming ceremonies "have greatly contributed both to promoting tourism in Rwanda and to getting Rwandans to understand the benefits of protecting the environment in general," Rwanda's top tourism and national parks official, Rica Rwigamba, said in a statement.
Gorilla tracking is a major draw for tourists in Rwanda, with visitors paying 500 dollars for a permit to spend an hour with the primates in their bamboo forest habitat.
Four highly endangered mountain gorillas were found dead last month in Rwanda's part of the Virunga mountains, likely because of extreme cold in their mountain habitat.
