In 1929, the Belgian Colonial Authorities renamed Volcano National Park Albert National Park after expanding it into Rwanda and what was then the Belgian Congo. The park was nearly half its original size by the end of the 1960s due to its division in the wake of Rwanda’s and Congo’s independence, which occurred in the early 1960s.

Before it was called the Karisoke Research Center, American primatologist Dian Fossey had been studying mountain gorillas in the Congolese jungles until 1967, when she fled from instability and set up her research facility at a site between the Bisoke and Karisimbi volcanoes. Until her death in 1985, she led the campaign to protect mountain gorillas and gathered support to combat poaching in the region. Her final resting place was at the research facility, adjacent to that of Digit, the gorilla she loved.

Despite ongoing conservation measures, the park remained vulnerable to poaching. The park was a flashpoint in Rwanda’s civil conflict in the early 1990s, cutting off visitors until 1999. Rwanda instituted the yearly infant naming ritual for young gorillas known as “Kwita Iziina” in 2005 with the hope of increasing conservation efforts and gorilla tours in Volcanoes National Park. This initiative has been highly successful in preserving the gorilla population in Volcanoes.