The recently appointed Executive Director of Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), Sam Mwandha, has started familiarization visit to conservation areas in the country.
Mwandha kicked off the visit Wednesday starring Lake Mburo Conservation Area and urged park rangers to uphold UWA core values of Commitment to conservation, teamwork, customer care, quality service, professionalism and Integrity.
Sam Mwandha replaced Dr. Andrew in February.
Uganda apparently has 10 national parks dispersed across its various regions. The number could increase or decrease in the nearby future basing on the number of game reserves and forest reserves that the country has. Mwandha is expected to visit all these.
At the moment Murchison Falls National Park is the biggest with Lake Mburo National Park being the smallest. Kidepo Valley National Park Uganda is the most isolated, falling far north-east of the wild frontier region of Uganda, Mt. Elgon National Park is the least visited and could lose it’s national park status anytime soon as claimed by UWA.
Queen Elizabeth National Park is the most popular of all where as Bwindi Impenetrable National Park Uganda remains among the most visited. The other national parks include Mgahinga Gorilla National Park, Kibale Forest National Park, Semuliki Valley National Park & Rwenzori Mountains National Park.
These national parks have long been the center of tourism in Uganda attracting thousands of visitors annually.
Each of them has diverse tourism activities to offer to tourists that range from wildlife viewing, chimpanzee tracking, gorilla trekking, golden monkey trekking, nature / community walks, canoeing and so much more. For gorilla trekkers, Bwindi harbors over half the total population of the remaining endangered mountain gorillas in the whole world. The gorillas are divided into families and distributed according to the sectors of Bwindi in their respective habitats.
As for wildlife viewing, Queen Elizabeth National Park, Murchison Falls National Park and Kidepo Valley National Park are goldmine though Lake Mburo National Park also offers a good sight on some occasions. Chimpanzee tracking can be carried out from Kyambura Gorge and Kalinzu forest near Queen Elizabeth National Park, in Murchison Falls National Park and in Kibale Forest National Park (Best place for Chimpanzee trekking).
