Forest of Hope Association

Forest of Hope Association (FHA) took over conservation of Rwanda's Gishwati forest in 2011, after decades of clearance for cattle ranching, farming and resettlement of people displaced by the 1994 genocide had reduced it from 28,000 hectares to under 600. Working through community forest protection committees, FHA has helped regrow the forest to roughly 1,570 hectares and supported its 2016 designation as Gishwati-Mukura National Park, Rwanda's fourth national park. The recovering forest has become both an ecological and social healing project: genocide survivors and former subsistence farmers now work as guides, researchers and forest monitors, and the chimpanzee population has grown from 13 to 40 individuals.