Kenneth Kazibwe

Uganda Wildlife Authority has said it is optimistic the number of visitors to Uganda's national parks will hit a record high this year.

"As Uganda Wildlife Authority received 367,869 visitors between January and December 2022. Before Covid happened, 320,000 visitors is what we had as the highest number of visitors coming to our protected areas and this was in 2019 but we surpassed this last year," said Dorcus Rukundo Twesigomwe, the Business Development Manager at Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA).

"367,869 has been the biggest number we have ever registered in the history of Uganda Wildlife Authority."

She was speaking during a media breakfast at Skyz Hotel in Kampala.

Uganda has 10 national parks, 12 wildlife reserves, 13 sanctuaries and 05 community wildlife areas, all of which are under the Uganda Wildlife Authority.

Domestic tourists rise

The onset of the Covid pandemic brought the tourism sector to its knees as one of the most affected since airports and facilities were closed.

However, following the opening of the economy, the country embarked on a campaign for Ugandans to visit local tourist attractions.

Rukundo explained that comparing with pre-covid, 2019 had the highest number of visitors to Uganda's protected areas ever at 330,000 but noted since the lifting of the lockdown, the number of visitors has shot up.

The UWA Business Development Manager reasoned that the growth in number of visitors to Uganda's protected areas can be partly explained by the outdoor experiences for several Ugandans in the country's national parks.

"Last year we saw many Ugandans choosing to visit our national parks and other protected areas comparing to the time before Covid. Many people now choose to visit our national parks when they would probably choose to fly out of the country."

Optimistic

The UWA Executive Director, Sam Mwandha said that the country is on course to beat the number of visitors recorded last year.

"For us to reach that number (367,869 visitors), this quarter we are in, we only need 56,000 visitors and I am confident we will get more than 60,000 and we will go above. Previously, the highest we have got was 330,000 and we are now saying, we are doing better than ever before,"Mwandha said.

Poaching still a menace

Whereas the country has taken great strides in increasing the number of visitors to its national parks and other protected areas, issues like poaching and human wildlife conflict still pause challenges.

"The biggest problem we have with elephants, lions and pangolins is poaching because people are looking for easy money. The vice of poaching will unfortunately not go easily. It is like theft that despite many being taken to prisons, there are still many thieves. What we do is to ensure when we catch you, you get a big enough punishment to deter you from going back,"Mwandha said.

For example, between July and December last year alone, 7307 poaching implements and seven guns with 14 live ammunitions were recovered during operations by UWA personnel.

During the same period, 224.15 kilograms of ivory and 1870.5 kilograms of pangolin scales were also seized.

On the other side, there were 3974 cases of human wildlife conflict reported.

"Now that the population for both humans and the wildlife has risen, there will always be conflict. Wildlife knows no boundaries and what you get is wildlife crossing to the human habitats,"Mwandha said.