A group of international celebrities named 23 baby mountain gorillas in Rwanda Saturday, supporting efforts by the genocide-scarred country to save the endangered species and develop tourism.
"Star Wars" actress Natalie Portman led the pack of celebrities at the naming ceremony in the Volcanoes national park, the third fundraising event of its kind organised by the Rwandan authorities.
According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), there are only 720 mountain gorillas surviving in the wild, in parks straddling Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The species is still threatened by poachers and civil conflict in the eastern DRC, where two silverbacks were killed by rebels earlier this year.
Speaking at the ceremony, Rwandan President Paul Kagame called for strict measures to ensure the protection of mountain gorillas.
But with park entrance fees at 500 dollars, gorilla-watching by high-end foreign tourists is also a key source of revenue, and Rwandan officials also advocated the development of the region's tourism capabilities.
The head of the Rwanda tourism office, Chantal Rosette Rugamba, said 300 million dollars had been invested in gorilla conservation projects since 2005.
Rwanda was shattered by the 1994 genocide, during which an estimated 800,000 people were massacred, but has banked on tourism to relaunch its moribund economy.
Officials hope annual revenue from tourism will triple in coming years to top 100 million by 2010.
