Reading the Forest Through Water: Rwanda's New Biodiversity Tool at Volcanoes National Park
By Innovation Report | February 2026. Reported in collaboration with the African Wildlife Foundation, the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, and the Rwanda Development Board.
Key Points
- ✓ Environmental DNA technology detects species through genetic traces shed into water and soil, without disturbing wildlife or requiring direct observation. In the dense montane terrain of Volcanoes National Park, this molecular approach can identify rare and cryptic species that camera traps and field surveys consistently miss.
- ✓ Twenty emerging Rwandan conservation professionals completed a five-day training in molecular ecology, eDNA sampling protocols, laboratory processing, and data interpretation in February 2026. The programme is structured so the second sampling phase will be led entirely by Rwandan staff—an explicit handover of technical ownership, not just technical access.
- ✓ A baseline survey will cover 30 strategically selected sites across the park and its surrounding restoration zones, including permanent wetlands, seasonal wetlands, rivers, and expansion corridors extending up to 1,000 metres beyond the park boundary. This design allows researchers to track biodiversity spillover as well as interior park health.
- ✓ The eDNA data will be integrated with more than 20 years of long-term monitoring records collected by the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund across Volcanoes National Park—one of the most comprehensive ecological datasets in the region—creating a more complete picture of how this landscape is changing over time.
On the eastern slopes of the Virunga massif, where mist and dense hagenia forest make conventional wildlife surveys difficult and incomplete, 20 Rwandan conservation professionals spent five days in February learning to read the landscape differently. Their tools were not binoculars or camera traps, but sampling vials and molecular protocols. The target: genetic traces left in water and soil by every creature that drinks, rests, feeds, or dies within Volcanoes National Park.
The training, held from 9 to 13 February 2026 at the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund's Kinigi Campus, marked the formal launch of environmental DNA monitoring—eDNA—across one of Rwanda's most ecologically significant landscapes. The initiative is part of the TUI Wildlife Programme, funded by the TUI Care Foundation and implemented by the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) in collaboration with the Rwanda Development Board and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.
eDNA works by detecting genetic material organisms shed continuously into their environment—through skin cells, saliva, waste, hair, and decomposing remains. Rather than requiring a researcher to observe an animal directly, the method identifies species from what they leave behind in the water and soil around them. In a park characterised by steep terrain, variable elevation, and habitat edges that shift with altitude and season, that distinction matters considerably.
Patrick Nsabimana, AWF's Rwanda Country Coordinator, described the significance directly: "By simply analysing water and soil, we are unlocking a new era of conservation, where Rwandan scientists lead with data to protect every species within Volcanoes National Park."
How eDNA Monitoring Works
Every living organism continuously sheds genetic material into its surroundings—skin cells, saliva, waste, hair, and decomposing tissue all carry DNA into the environment. Scientists collect small water or soil samples from rivers, wetlands, and streams, then extract and sequence the genetic fragments they contain.
Those sequences are matched against reference databases to identify which species were present in that location—without any direct observation required. A stream running through a gorilla's home range carries gorilla DNA. So does water beside a nest site used by a rarely observed amphibian.
The result is a species inventory derived not from what researchers happened to see, but from what every animal in that watershed left behind. In habitats like Volcanoes National Park—characterised by dense vegetation, variable cloud cover, and difficult terrain—this distinction fundamentally changes what is possible to monitor.
What Cameras Cannot Confirm
For decades, biodiversity monitoring at Volcanoes National Park has combined direct observation, camera traps, and acoustic surveys—methods that have generated an unusually detailed long-term record, largely because of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund's sustained presence in the landscape. The Fund has been conducting systematic research across the park for over two decades, tracking species from gorillas and golden monkeys down to insects, wetland invertebrates, and plant communities. What they have built is widely regarded as one of the most comprehensive ecological datasets in the region.
eDNA does not replace any of that work. What it adds is a molecular layer—one capable of confirming the presence of species that move through an area without being photographed, heard, or encountered by a field researcher. Camera traps depend on an animal crossing a particular point at a particular moment. Acoustic surveys depend on vocalisations. eDNA depends on nothing more than the biological reality that every living organism leaves traces of itself in its surroundings.
In practice, this matters most for the organisms at the margins of detection—the small and the reclusive, the species that exist at low density or occupy microhabitats difficult to survey on foot. These are also often the organisms that function as early indicators of ecosystem stress, declining before more visible species show any sign of pressure. The ability to detect them consistently, across 30 sites and two seasons, gives park managers earlier warning of ecological change than field surveys alone can provide.
The park's terrain amplifies the value of this sensitivity. Volcanoes National Park covers 160 km² of afro-alpine landscape, ranging from dense montane forest to open moorland at altitude. Slope, cloud cover, and shifting vegetation structure create conditions where the same square kilometre can look, sound, and feel entirely different depending on the week and the weather. A method that does not depend on visibility changes what is possible to monitor.
Thirty Sites and Two Seasons
The baseline survey will cover 16 sites inside the park and 14 within expansion and restoration zones on its periphery. That distribution is deliberate. Permanent wetlands and rivers will be sampled for year-round biodiversity signals; seasonal wetlands will provide data on habitat connectivity during wet and dry cycles; and sites at 500 metres and 1,000 metres beyond the park boundary will reveal what biodiversity exists in the landscape outside the formal protected area—and whether the park's ecological influence extends into restoration corridors or ends at the fence line.
The institutions participating in the training reflect the breadth of Rwanda's conservation infrastructure: AWF, the Rwanda Development Board, the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, Gorilla Doctors, the University of Rwanda, the Rwanda Environment Management Authority, and the Rwanda Wildlife Conservation Association. The mix of government agencies, research institutions, and non-governmental organisations working through a shared protocol is itself part of what the programme is trying to build. eDNA monitoring at this scale requires not just trained individuals, but aligned institutions capable of maintaining a data system across staff changes, funding cycles, and shifting research priorities.
The training was structured with continuity in mind. The first sampling phase will be supervised by external experts; the second will be led by the Rwandan professionals who completed the five-day programme. That sequencing—supervised practice followed by independent leadership—is an intentional design choice rather than a capacity-building afterthought. The goal is a monitoring system that Rwandan institutions own and can sustain.
By anchoring sequencing capacity and data analysis inside the country rather than sending samples abroad for processing, the programme reduces both cost and dependency over time. What Rwanda will have, once baseline surveys are complete, is not just a dataset about Volcanoes National Park—but a functional, domestically operated system for generating and interpreting molecular biodiversity data across an ecologically complex landscape.
By the Numbers
Frequently Asked Questions
What is environmental DNA monitoring and why is it suited to Volcanoes National Park?
Environmental DNA monitoring detects species by analysing genetic material shed into water and soil—skin cells, saliva, waste, and decomposing tissue. Because it does not require direct observation of an animal, the method is particularly valuable in habitats like Volcanoes National Park where dense vegetation, steep terrain, and variable cloud cover limit what conventional surveys can find. Small and cryptic species that rarely appear on camera traps or within earshot of acoustic monitors can still be detected through the genetic traces they leave in streams and soil.
How does this programme build on existing monitoring work at the park?
The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund has been conducting systematic biodiversity research at Volcanoes National Park for over two decades, tracking species ranging from gorillas and golden monkeys to insects, wetland invertebrates, and plant communities. The eDNA programme does not replace any of that work—it adds a molecular layer to one of the most detailed long-term ecological datasets in the region, allowing researchers to identify species the existing methods cannot consistently detect.
Why are sites being established outside the park boundary?
Fourteen of the 30 monitoring sites are located in expansion and restoration zones on the park's periphery, at distances of 500 metres and 1,000 metres beyond the park boundary. These sites will reveal whether the park's ecological influence extends into adjacent restoration corridors—and whether biodiversity is moving into those areas as habitat recovers. The data also helps establish the ecological value of land that lies outside the formal protected area but functions as part of the same landscape.
How is the programme designed to ensure long-term Rwandan ownership?
The first sampling phase will be supervised by external experts, while the second will be led independently by the 20 Rwandan professionals trained during the February programme. By building sequencing capacity and data analysis capability within the country rather than sending samples abroad, the initiative is designed to reduce both cost and external dependency over time. Seven Rwandan institutions are participating under a shared protocol—ensuring the monitoring system can be sustained across staff changes and funding cycles.
Which organisations are involved in implementing the programme?
The initiative is part of the TUI Wildlife Programme, funded by the TUI Care Foundation and implemented by the African Wildlife Foundation in collaboration with the Rwanda Development Board and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. Additional institutions participating in the training include Gorilla Doctors, the University of Rwanda, the Rwanda Environment Management Authority, and the Rwanda Wildlife Conservation Association.
