“The Ellen Campus represents a huge expansion of our teaching and laboratory spaces, enabling us to not just increase but transform our programs to study gorillas and their critical forest habitat and bring educational opportunities to early career African scientists and members of the local community, ” says Felix Ndagijimana, the Fossey Fund’s director of Rwanda programs. “It is our hope that people who visit the Ellen DeGeneres Campus will leave inspired to make a difference, just as Dian Fossey did.” Tara Stoinski, the Fossey Fund’s president and chief scientific officer. “From the outset, the mission of this project has focused on creating a space to engage the many stakeholders in conservation-students, scientists, tourists, conservation partners, community members-to advance our collective goal of saving gorillas and, more broadly, the planet,” says Dr. Feared by Dian Fossey to be extinct by the year 2000, mountain gorillas represent a rare conservation success story, with the population in the region growing from a low of 250 in the 1980s to more than 600 today.
Their work combines daily, boots-on-the ground protection and study of individual gorillas with people-centered programs aimed at training the next generation of African conservationists and addressing the basic needs of the people who share the gorillas’ forest home through food and water security, livelihood and education programs.
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“To see my name alongside hers on the walls of this beautiful campus, and to know I’m doing my part to protect endangered gorillas and continue Dian’s legacy, is simply amazing.”įounded by the legendary Dian Fossey, whose life and ultimately death were portrayed in the movie “Gorillas in the Mist,” the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund is the world’s largest and longest-running organization dedicated entirely to gorilla conservation. “Dian Fossey has always been a hero of mine, and so it’s been the honor of a lifetime to support this project,” says Ellen DeGeneres. The Ellen Campus, which is now open to the public, is the vision of the award-winning MASS Design Group and has been named one of Africa’s 10 most anticipated architectural projects and featured on 60 Minutes. Ellen and Portia’s lead gift enabled the Fossey Fund to move forward on an ambitious, 20-year dream project to build a permanent home in Rwanda aimed at accelerating their science and conservation work. When DeGeneres and her wife, Portia de Rossi, announced the creation of The Ellen Fund, a nonprofit that works to protect endangered animals, they also named the first recipient-the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.
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