New Episode of Patrimonito's World Heritage Adventures on Protecting Mountain Gorillas

The sixth episode in the animated series Patrimonito's World Heritage Adventures is now available, and focuses on the plight of mountain gorillas and other threatened species in the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The mountain gorillas are a flagship species of Virunga National Park, a World Heritage site since 1979. Due to armed conflict and massive poaching in the area, only an estimated 700 gorillas remain in the wild.

6th: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Uganda (The Virunga Mountains)
Watch
English/French/Spanish
Russian/Arabic/Chinese
Download FLV format
English/French/Spanish
Russian/Arabic/Chinese

To design the episode, storyboards were chosen following a competition among secondary school pupils in the region. Four hundred students from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda registered to take part in the competition, and 159 storyboards were submitted on the theme of protecting the World Heritage sites of the Virunga National Park (DRC), the Rwenzori Mountains National Park and the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (Uganda). Storyboards were selected based on creative quality, content, realism and overall presentation. The winning storyboard was submitted by 16-year old Niyonsanga Jackson from a class taught by Irakarama Justin at the Lycée de Ruhengeri Apicur in Rwanda.

Storyboards for this cartoon series are produced through competitions among secondary school pupils to raise their awareness of the importance of World Heritage and their role in preserving it. The selected storyboards are professionally animated and produced in CD-ROM or DVD format for global diffusion to schools and at World Heritage youth events.

To request a copy, contact [email protected]