America’s famous television personality and actor, Ellen DeGeneres plans to set up a protection facility, aimed at conserving endangered mountain gorillas in the Rwanda’s Virunga Mountains.
The plan to have the facility for Dain Fossey was announced at DeGeneres’ 60th birthday as her wife, Portia de Rossi presented the facility as a gift.
DeGeneres is a renowned supporter of the work by late Dian Fossey, an American scientist who studied gorillas in Africa.
Fossey founded the Karisoke Research Centre in Rwanda to observe and protect mountain gorillas.
The ‘Ellen DeGeneres Campus’ of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund will help Ellen carry on Dian’s legacy by giving the centre a permanent home in Rwanda, while empowering the people living near the gorillas habitat to thrive in relationship to their own ecosystem, Rossi said during the show, local online website, the New Times said.
“Now, you will join Dian as a protector and champion of these amazing animals, the mountain gorillas,” De Rossi added.
The foundation’s main goal will be to ensure protection and advocacy for the world’s most vulnerable animals and wildlife.
The couple is expected to be in Rwanda next summer where they will design her dream centre.
Rwanda welcomed the initiative with officials pledging that they will support DeGeneres to meet her targets in Rwanda.
“We think that getting someone with both passion and network like DeGeneres is a very important step in our conservation work. One of the factors of our success in conservation has been how we work with partners,” Clare Akamanzi, the chief executive officer of the Rwanda Development Board said.
