In 2022, Off The Fence was granted the rare privilege of embedding a small crew while fimling 'Silverback' in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park to film the ‘habituation’ of a gorilla family. The Pole Pole Foundation (POPOF) helps to run this fantastic programme, which aims to acclimatise the Democratic Republic of Congo’s critically endangered eastern lowland gorillas to the presence of humans — a process that is vital to generating the eco-tourism dollars needed to protect these amazing creatures from extinction.

The three months our crew spent tracking the gorillas through the impenetrable jungle of the DRC was a learning experience on many levels — and not just in terms of getting up close and personal with the biggest primates on the planet. We also learned about POPOF’s tireless conservation efforts to protect the eastern lowland gorillas from poaching, disease and habitat destruction. It achieves this by working with local communities on a range of education and sustainable-development projects to end their reliance on the gorilla’s unique rainforest habitat.

During our stay in the DRC, POPOF founder John Kahekwa was kind enough to show us around some of these community-engagement projects, including a newly opened school, a tree-planting scheme to encourage locals to reduce their reliance on deforestation and a spirulina-production programme to tackle the DRC’s high incidence of malnourishment, particularly in children. For those interested in learning more about POPOF’s many activities, please visit:

For those interested in learning more about POPOF’s many activities, please click here.

The epic feature-length documentary, Silverback, that was the result of our time in the DRC would not have been possible without the help and support of POPOF. “Our incredible team of ‘eco-guards’ overcame massive challenges every day, many of them caused by the appalling condition of the roads surrounding the Kahuzi-Biega National Park,” says Silverback’s director, Miles Blayden-Ryall. “Because our gorilla family travelled a huge distance every day, the POPOF team had to drive us to a different location each morning to start our hike into the rainforest. The roads are so bad that only 4x4s can cope with them, but POPOF don’t have enough of these vehicles.

Our aim is to help our friends at POPOF with their fundraising initiative to raise funds to buy a Toyota Land Cruiser off-road truck, which will make a huge difference to their ability to support and protect not only the gorillas, but the local communities who share the rainforest with them.”

An example of the roads we travelled on while filming.

The Trees that Pole Pole offers to the local community for free

The community collecting the trees - 100 plants each.

A young tree sapling planted

Mpungwe - the Silverback we were following.