The multi-acre, eco-friendly spread is designed to provide the Fossey Fund with a space that helps amplify its mission of protecting and studying gorillas. Photo The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund

Here’s news to go ape over.

Ellen DeGeneres’ long-awaited dream has become a reality with the public opening of her gorilla campus in Rwanda.

Located outside Volcanoes National Park, the idea first came to fruition four years ago, when her wife, Portia de Rossi, gifted the daytime host with a gorilla conservation center to celebrate her 60th birthday.

The spread is named the Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund after the late American primatologist and conservationist.

“Dian Fossey has always been a hero of mine, and so it’s been the honor of a lifetime to support this project,” DeGeneres said in a press release sent to The Post.

“To see my name alongside hers on the walls of this beautiful campus, and to know I’m doing my part to protect endangered gorillas and continue Dian’s legacy, is simply amazing.”

Initially founded by Fossey, whose life and ultimately death were portrayed in the movie “Gorillas in the Mist,” the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund is considered the world’s largest and longest-running organization dedicated entirely to gorilla conservation, according to the press release.

“From the outset, the mission of this project has focused on creating a space to engage the many stakeholders in conservation — students, scientists, tourists, conservation partners, community members—to advance our collective goal of saving gorillas and more broadly, the planet,” said Dr. Tara Stoinski, the Fossey Fund’s president and chief scientific officer. “It is our hope that people who visit the Ellen DeGeneres Campus will leave inspired to make a difference, just as Dian Fossey did.“

The Ellen DeGeneres Campus opened to visitors for the first time on Tuesday after years of construction and is available for private tours.

“The Ellen Campus represents a huge expansion of our teaching and laboratory spaces, enabling us to not just increase but transform our programs to study gorillas and their critical forest habitat and bring educational opportunities to early career African scientists and members of the local community,” said Felix Ndagijimana, the Fossey Fund’s director of Rwanda programs.

The fund acquired approximately 15 acres of land for the projects and consists of eco-friendly facilities including housing for visiting students and researchers.

Support from numerous donors contributed to the project, including Leonardo DiCaprio, who named a theater for his mother, Irmelin, and a computer lab for his father, George.

Fossey feared that mountain gorillas would be extinct by the year 2000. But the population in the region grew from a low of 250 gorillas in the 1980s to more than 600 today, according to the press release, which attributed the “rare conservation success story” to the work of Fossey and other staff members. - Mary K. Jacob, NEW YORK POST

Alex Smith was attacked in Munster Square, Camden. Photo PA Media

European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell Fontelles (left) and Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Raychelle Omamo after signing of a Joint Declaration on the Kenya-European Union Strategic Dialogue in Nairobi on January 28, 2022. PHOTO DAILY NATION

Kenya and the European Union on Friday launched vital talks to elevate their ties beyond aid and focus on issues of long-term peace and development.

At a meeting in Nairobi, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Foreign Affairs and visiting EU top diplomat Josep Borrell Fontelles signed a joint declaration to formally begin discussions on a Strategic Dialogue, a guiding document that could turn relations to “common problems.”

Mr Fontelles, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, arrived in Nairobi on Friday,  just three weeks before the EU hosts African delegates in Brussels for the EU-AU Summit. But while the bloc wants to build ties with the entire continent, Mr Fontelles said the EU will first work with 'like-minded countries.'

“We have been having, the European Union and Kenya, a long standing relationship. But we are no longer the donor of development aid. We are a strategic partner,” Fontelles told a joint press conference in Nairobi.

Peace and security

“There is no doubt that peace and security is at stake in this region and the whole world. And this requires that like-minded countries like the European Union and Kenya join their forces in order to work together in many fields.”

The Strategic Dialogue, he said, will “bring concrete results, because it will focus on delivering on commitments, actions, investments, and sharing objectives among our people.”

Those commitments will target long-term peace and security in the region, fighting poverty through trade and investment, environmental conservation and fighting climate change, defending democracy and the rule of law, and human rights, “as well as many sectors in Kenya’s priority development agenda,” Ms Omamo said.

The EU has traditionally been one of Kenya’s biggest donors; supporting programmes for justice, humanitarian support for the displaced as well as in education. On Friday, Mr Fontelles launched the Kenya-European Union Cooperation programme.

Meant to last until 2027, the programme targets environmentally responsible investments in Kenya, human development and digital inclusion through computer literacy and internet service provision.

It will cost $361 million in the initial four years. It will deal with  projects meant to preserve peace and stability “with a special focus on women and youth,” the dispatch said.

The final document from the Strategic Dialogue will guide the ties between the EU and Kenya for the next five years.

Ms Omamo said technical teams from both sides will draft agreements on peace and Security and Stability, Sustainable, Inclusive Development and SDGs and Economy, Trade and Investment, the three main pillars under discussion.

But while it is entirely bilateral, Ms Omamo said the pillars will be related to the goings-on in the region, including the humanitarian issues, security incidents and regional cooperation.

“We need partnerships in all of our countries to tackle challenges of the day in a spirit of collaboration and in a spirit of partnership,” she said.

“We have a common spirit towards development…and for countries that are able to deliver development goods to their people…. that was the spirit of our conversation and they are in line with our conversation of the Strategic Dialogue.”

The EU and Kenya have implemented a trade pact which was initially meant for the entire East African Community but which saw member states raise fears of a possible obstruction to nascent industries.

Mr Fontelles also met President Uhuru Kenyatta at State House, Nairobi. - AGGREY MUTAMBO, The EastAfrican