Gorilla ecotourism in Rwanda, Uganda, and Congo generates conservation funding but requires careful welfare management to ensure that tourist visits do not transmit disease or cause chronic stress to habituated groups.
Gorilla ecotourism welfare involves genuine trade-offs. Habituated gorillas that are comfortable near humans are more vulnerable to tourist-transmitted diseases but generate the revenue that funds the ranger patrols, veterinary care, and community benefits that sustain conservation. The individual welfare cost of disease risk and some stress from tourist presence must be weighed against the population-level benefit of conservation funding. The welfare case is for stringent protocols — minimum distances, visitor limits, health screening, mandatory mask use — that minimise individual welfare costs while preserving the revenue that enables conservation. Poorly managed ecotourism serves neither welfare nor conservation; well-managed ecotourism can serve both.