Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park lies in Southwestern Uganda about 520km from the capital city Kampala. Probably the best tourist destination in the ‘Gifted by nature’ republic of Uganda, “Bwindi” means impenetrable in Lukiga. Gazetted in 1942, Bwindi became a national park in 1992 and is recognized as a World Heritage Site. It covers 372 km2 of tangled vegetation draped over a deeper fissured landscape of steep, slippery valleys and high draughty ridges. Considered one of Africa’s ancient rainforest and ranks among the world’s pristine and premier wilderness areas and a biodiversity hotspot, with neighboring populations including pygmies (Batwa) who until recently were inhabiting the forest, and still consider it their ancestral home.

Bwindi supports a tremendous biological diversity due to its slopes that extend over a broad altitudinal range of 1447m above sea level to create habitats ranging from lowland forest at 1160m to rare afromontane forests above 2600m. More to this, it is one of the Africa’s old forests (25.000years) that persisted the arid conditions of the last ice age. It hosts a diversity of fauna and fauna, including 310 species of butterflies, 51 reptiles, 200 trees, 88 moths and an exceptional 120 types of mammals including 10 different types of primates among other are Chimpanzee, L’hoest monkeyss, red tailed monkeys, blue monkeys, black and white colobus monkeys, baboons and world’s rare mountain gorillas, where 4 groups of Mubare, Habiyanja, Rushegura and Nkuringo are habituated for tourism. Bwindi is one of the world’s birding hotspots, boosting130 species of birds, 7 of which are listed by IUCN red data and 90% of all are Albertine rift endemics, which are difficult to be seen elsewhere apart from Bwindi.