Many of the world's few remaining mountain gorillas are located in the thirty-thousand-acre Parc des Volcans in the small African country of Rwanda. Rwanda has the highest population density in Africa. Most people there live on small farms. To this population, the Parc des Volcans represents valuable land that could be used for farming to feed an expanding human population. Opening the park to development could support thirty-six thousand people on subsistence farms.
But it would have an adverse impact on the gorilla population. Should the park be maintained as a way to preserve the gorillas, or should it be given to the people for farming? To what extent, if any, do humans have an obligation to look for new and creative ways to meet their own needs in order to protect the interests of animals?