Page 20 - July - Sept 2022 Edition

Queen Elizabeth National Park

Article by Michael Keigwin
Photographs courtesy of Little Elephant Camp & Michael Keigwin
“UNDERSTANDABLY UGANDA’S MOST POPULAR TOURIST DESTINATION”
The variety of landscape and habitat in Queen have all been established.
Elizabeth National Park (QE) is breath-taking:
volcanic craters, forests, savanna, the Mweya Additionally, UCF and UWA have reopened 16
peninsular, mountains, and important Ramsar sites. waterholes – some of which tourists are already
It is the centre piece of one of Africa’s most seeing and enjoying. In earlier times, the severe
valuable networks of protected areas along the poaching had so decimated the animals that
Albertine Rift Valley. the waterholes silted up shifting wildlife
However, it has a turbulent history. Surrounded by distributions and movement patterns, often
people and agriculture and with eleven fishing forcing wildlife into areas vulnerable to
villages inside the park, a border with the DRC, poaching, and into areas close to communities
where wars have raged for decades, where both increasing the risk of conflict, such as elephant
local and international road networks abound it is a crop- raiding, lions following Uganda Kobs to the
complicated park to manage. shores of Lake George and encountering
For decades, UWA has struggled in QE with both livestock, illegally in the park.
poaching pressures and managing human wildlife
conflict, especially where elephant crop raiding is These waterholes now hold wildlife in areas with
concerned. However, UWA has made considerable better protection, away from communities
efforts managing both, and continues to do so. –making wildlife safer and also reducing
potential human wildlife conflict.
Pontious Ezuma, UWA QEPA Chief Warden; says; These successes are encouraging new tourism
“what many don’t appreciate is that over the past investment including new lodge concessions.
decades, UWA hasn’t had the resources to make These will result in new tracks and new areas of
the changes needed to resolve all of the problems the park opening up.
and enable the park to be more successful. For so
long only small tourism zones such as in Kasenyi But what of the lions?
were focused on”.
However, using the successful strategy applied in There is now a full time UCF / UWA carnivore
Murchison Falls, UWA has expanded management team in QE and the carnivore recovery strategy
capability and protection to cover the whole park, continues to be implemented. This team
resulting in very significant changes in attitude and monitors lions on a daily basis and responds to
investment requirements. Investments made prevent or help manage conflict across the
through the Recovery of QE programme by UWA park. Some carefully selected lions are satellite
and the Uganda Conservation Foundation (UCF) collared. If lions move out of the park, or into
have ensured that the foundations of protected risky areas, the team is deployed to help
area management are in place –helping the park prevent livestock or predator loss. The team
to recover in terms of wildlife numbers, expanding monitors areas where lions are, or thought to be
tourism opportunities and regional economic to ensure their safety.
development’.
There are about a minimum 75 lions in QE and
Over the past five years, the EU, with funds including others being encountered are added to the
the CITES MIKES programme, has invested in UWA’s Recognition File, which will, over time, become
ability to manage the park and with additional more accurate. Now that Virunga National Park
support from the UCF, rangers have been trained is better managed and with, until recent
and equipped, a communications network installed months, lower levels of insecurity than over the
across the park, operational vehicles provided, a past twenty years, wildlife, including lions, have
dozen ranger posts rebuilt and repositioned to responded by moving into Virunga, and
protect critical landscapes, species and communi- spending longer there. So long as they are kept
ties, and capabilities such as marine ranger units safe, this is good for lion conservation too.

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