Karisoke Research Center in Rwanda was founded by Dian Fossey

Dian Fossey

Dian Fossey was an American zoologist who undertook an extensive study of gorilla groups over a period of 18 years. She studied them daily in the mountain forests of Rwanda, initially encouraged to work there by famous anthropologist Louis Leakey...

 on 24 September 1967. The camp was the location of extensive studies on Mountain Gorilla

Mountain Gorilla

The Mountain Gorilla is one of the two subspecies of the Eastern Gorilla. There are two populations. One is found in the Virunga volcanic mountains of Central Africa, within three National Parks: Mgahinga, in south-west Uganda; Volcanoes, in north-west Rwanda; and Virunga in the eastern Democratic...

s.

The camp was located in Rwanda

Rwanda

Rwanda or , officially the Republic of Rwanda , is a country in central and eastern Africa with a population of approximately 11.4 million . Rwanda is located a few degrees south of the Equator, and is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo...

, between Mt. Karisimbi and Mt. Visoke, and the camp was therefore given a name which was a mixture of these two mountains. The camp continued to function even after Fossey's murder in December 1985 but was closed down during the genocide in Rwanda when most of the workers became refugees in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly known as Zaire). The camp now seems to be deserted and overgrown by vegetation but is still a monument

Monument

A monument is a type of structure either explicitly created to commemorate a person or important event or which has become important to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, or simply as an example of historic architecture...

to admirers of Fossey, her work and the first zoological camp dedicated exclusively to the study of Mountain Gorillas.