Great Sorrow in Bwindi National Park for the Death of Ruhodeza, one of the oldest Silverback

Ruhondeza, one of the oldest silverbacks in Bwindi national park has died. It was also the leader of the first group that kick-started habituated gorilla tourism in Uganda.

Believed to have been over 50 years old, Ruhonza was until recently the leader of the reknown Mubare gorilla family whose successful habituation in 1991 kick-started gorilla tours.

Over 50 community members converged to attend Ruhondeza's burial in Buhoma.   He died on Friday last week and preliminary findings from a postmortem done by the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project (MGVP) suggest that he died of old age.

 Lillian Nsubuga, the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) spokesperson, said a comprehensive postmortem report would be released later.

“His body had no injuries but the teeth were completely worn out up to the gums which meant he could not feed properly. He was also very thin and his muscles had greatly weakened,” Nsubuga explained.

 UWA staff in Bwindi for several weeks were monitoring the health and movements of Ruhondeza together with community members and veterinary doctors.

 Nsubuga said UWA would construct a monument at Ruhondeza's burial site and provide wide literature about his life and times in recognition of his contribution to the country's tourism industry.

“His life will always be celebrated for having contributed to the birth of gorilla tourism in Uganda,” Nsubuga stated.

“Although we are saddened by Ruhondeza's death, we are at the same time happy that he was able to live to a ripe old age in the face of the numerous challenges facing gorilla conservation today and gorilla trekking activities.” 

Ruhondeza's Mubare group has enabled gorilla eco-tourism to grow and flourish in Uganda. Currently Uganda has eight habituated mountain gorilla families, receiving between 55 and 64 tourists daily and yielding over $11m (about sh26.7b) annually.

UWA charges $500 (about sh1.2m) per foreign non-resident tourist and sh250,000 from east Africans for gorilla trekking.

Early this year, Ruhondeza's family (Mubare) had a fight with a wild unhabituated group, which caused the Mubare family members to scatter. Ruhondeza remained alone while his son Kanyonyi escaped with three family members.

The number of children Ruhondeza fathered in his lifetime is not known but at the time of his family's habituation in 1991, it consisted of 17 family members.

The Mubare family is now headed by Kanyonyi and has seven members including one juvenile, three sub-adults and two adult females.

THE PRESIDENT OF UGANDA BLASTS THE UGANDA TOURISM BOARD

President Yoweri Museveni used a meeting held at State House Entebbe earlier in the week to discuss his presidential tourism initiative to lay heavily into the strategy and mindset of the Uganda Tourism Board (UTB), which he accused of making mistakes, claiming the board  to lacks seriousness and originality.

The United National Development Program (UNDP) has been searching for a consultant to help UTB develop a new outlook, marketing strategy, and policy for the coming years, due to start work by the end of April, but considering that tourism organizations in neighboring Kenya and Rwanda, and even as far as the Seychelles, came up with award-winning strategies in-house, it is a telling sign that the country’s President needs to spell out what has been an open secret in the corridors of the tourism industry in the country.

The President minced no words when he mocked UTB as the “Uganda Temporarily Board,” accusing them of “killing tourism” instead of promoting it.
In fairness though, and here several key stakeholders felt that all the facts should be looked upon in subsequent conversations and mails, it is government after all which has kept UTB on a hamstrung budget, barely enough to meet recurrent expenditure, with hardly enough money to attend a handful of tourism events abroad, unlike the country’s main competitors, which attend tourism trade shows, hold road shows, and cram events around the world.

It was also pointed out to this correspondent that neither the existing tourism policy nor the existing tourism law has been fully implemented, with special mention of the tourism levy, which was meant to help finance a re-organized UTB and allow it to effectively compete on level terms with its main competitors.

Said a regular source: “The tourism board had this coming for a while, because they are like a rudderless ship or a ship without a captain. But government is as much at fault. They appointed the tourist board chief, they appointed the board members, and they, the same government, starves the institution of money. They have been doing some one off events in the past and made a lot of fuss about it, but what is required is consistency. None of those past activities has seen any follow up, and the action, and the money spent, like a few years ago on a CNN campaign, just evaporated.

“You keep writing about Seychelles and how they have reversed the rot of a few years ago, and I can only go by what you wrote, but it seems they are doing a lot better by engaging with the media, with airlines, with the private sector, and they are succeeding. Kenya is also a good example, their KTB [Kenya Tourist Board] is everywhere something happens and so is Rwanda. If I compare ourselves with the biblical figures who got the talents to work with, we put our talents and opportunities into a dark corner instead of turning them in to profit. We have too many attractions, too many unique sights, the lake, the rivers, the mountains and all, and yet, the world looks on us like a gorilla destination only. Others have diversified; we have not lived up to our potential.

“The Lonely Planet made us the world’s top destination for 2012; this year it is the 50th anniversary of our independence, and where are we with the preparations? If anything happens, it seems to be a state secret, but we more suspect that little unique and creative is coming from it. UTB needs change, UTB needs money, the ministry needs money, but our government is big in lip service and very small in funding the sector.”

Harsh words from the President and a critical view from a key stakeholder who attended the meeting at State House, but echoed by a number of others since. Quo Vadis (where are you going) Uganda Tourism – time to own up, shape up, or ship out? Time will tell which way to go, but it has to happen fast as the October 9 Independence Day is now only just over 5 months away.

Compiled by Lucky a uganda safaris and rwanda safaris article writer with a huge passion for Uganda tours and tours to the rest of East Africa

Can Uganda handle 1.5 Million Tourists ???????????

Analysis

Kampala — The Lonely Planet, an internationally respected travel magazine last year voted Uganda the world's top tourist destination for 2012.

The reason it gave was the voting of the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park as Africa's number one birding site over South Africa's Kruger National Park and Cape Town's ocean shores early last year by the African Bird Club. Murchision Falls National Park became ninth among the top 10 birding sites in the continent.
On top of that, the Virunga volcanoes found in the Western part of the country were voted number one out of 20 places people should visit in 2012 in the National Geographical Traveler Magazine.

Uganda has continued to acquire mileage from the National Geographic Society, one of the largest non- profit scientific and educational institutions in the world, like in November last year when it voted the Ishasha tree climbing lion the best picture for 2011, Mount Rwenzori among the 15 hiking places and Kampala the safest city in Africa.

Now, with the international rankings, Uganda is anticipating an influx of foreign tourists in the range of 1.2 million to 1.5 million tourists this year alone.

Many tour operators are hoping to reap from the surge in numbers with the only worry coming from whether Uganda can afford to host the large numbers.

According to Ms Kelley Mac Tavish, the executive director of Pearl of Africa Tours and Travel, one of the largest tour operating firms, Uganda has a lot to do towards infrastructure development, if the country wants to satisfy its visitors.

"I think we're not ready. We have not done enough. When you look at Entebbe airport, it's still struggling to handle just about 650,000 visitors. What about when the number doubles. The accommodation both in parks and in Kampala is not enough," stressed Mac Tavish while acknowledging the efforts done by private individuals to market Uganda's tourism.

Uganda's tourism sector has been growing over the years following stagnation in the early 1970s to late 1980s. The country, which was the top tourist destination in East African in the 1960s, lost its glory to Kenya due to the many civil wars it had.

The revamping of the sector which started in the early 1990s hit another snag in 1999 when about eight British tourists were killed in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park by suspected Rwandan rebels believed to have come from the jungles of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Its revival has been ongoing since and this has seen a tremendous growth with Uganda now targeting about 1.5 milli n tourists this year.

The country has of recent been struggling to improve on the capacity and capabilities of its hotel staff standards. It has also put in place a tourism police force, purposely to guard and protect tourists as well as embarking on vigorous training of tour guides.

A number of hotels have been constructed since Uganda hosted the Common Wealth Heads of Government meeting in November 2007.

The tour operators have also boosted their capacity by purchasing a number of tour vehicles.
Mr. Joshua Rukundo, the reservations manager at Bunyonyi Safaris, another tour operating firm in Uganda, thinks the country can manage to handle the 1.5 million tourists because a number of investors have invested heavily in areas that used to pose a big challenge.

"We used to face huge challenges in accommodation but that is dying out. Many lodges and hotels have been constructed both in towns near parks or in the parks," said Rukundo. "I think they can provide the needed accommodation. The accommodation challenge is only faced in Kidepo National Park where there is only one modern lodge."

Mac Tavish believes that with Uganda major towns having only 4000 hirable beds available in a day, multiplied by 365 days in a year, it shows that Uganda still has a deficit in accommodation to handle 1.5 million tourists.

"Simple mathematics shows a deficit of 40,000 beds if 4000 tourists are visiting Uganda daily," she notes adding the government should put more effort on marketing as the private sector struggles to improve accommodation.

Mr. Ignie Igunduura, the manager public affairs, Civil Aviation Authority is confident that Entebbe Airport can handle the 1.5 million expected visitors this year. "Our designed haulage visitor capacity is 2 million per year. The 1.5 million visitors are clearly within our mandate to handle," explains Igunduura adding that the airport is considering capacity upgrading through the Civil Aviation Authority development master plan.
Mr. Gerald Kiwewa of African Tourism Research Academy says that handling such a huge number of visitors is not easy with Uganda Wildlife Authority allowing only 88 people to track Gorillas in a day and only 12 people daily are allowed to trek for Chimpanzees in Kibale National Park.

"It shows that only 32,120 visitors of the 1.5 million can track Gorillas yet most of the international visitors are interested in gorilla tracking. This is a challenge if we're receiving low budget and middle income tourists," adds Kiwewa.

He also noted the recent fires that burnt down accommodation sites in some national parks as another challenge to hosting mass tourists this year.
"A visitor to come has to book a hotel. If there is no reservation for him or her, this person cannot come. Inadequate accommodation can as well be a challenge," he adds
He was however optimistic that if such huge numbers are to come, in the spirit of the East African Community, Uganda neighbors like Rwanda, Dr. Congo and Kenya can as well benefit from the influx

Compiled by Connect Hemisphere Safaris a leading ugandasafaris Company. 

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URA to work with UWA to curb illegal poaching of wildlife in Uganda National Parks

Elephants grazing in Queen Elizabeth National Park

It’s unfortunate that the  Uganda Revenue Authority has impounded over 170 pieces of ivory, which indicates continued threats to the lives of Uganda’s elephants and other wildlife.

URA recently carried out an operation on exporters in which they also recovered monitor lizards and 189 pieces of hippo teeth. All the items are believed to be from poaching on the wildlife.
The Uganda Revenue Authority handed over the items estimated at about 400 million shillings to officials of Uganda Wildlife Authority.

 URA’s Assistant Commissioner in charge of enforcement, James Kisare said the exporters were intercepted following a tip off from informers.Kisare says URA is becoming more vigilant to reduce illegal poaching and illegal exportation of prized wildlife parts.
He cited elephants and hippos among the targeted animals for their horns and teeth, which has in turn affected the tourism sector due to reduced numbers of the animals that many tourists would love to come over to see.

Uganda Wildlife Authority official, Vincent Opinyi says the authority will continue to work with URA to ensure that this illegal trade is curbed.

Compiled by Connect Hemisphere Safaris Limited a Leading Specialist in Uganda safaris and Rwanda safaris

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The Government of Uganda assures tourists on effective eradication of tsetse flies from Uganda Parks

THE Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) has put up affective measures to eradicate Tsetse flies around Murchison Falls National Park.

“This will help restore confidence in the tourists who come to the country as well as boost the tourism sector,” noted the Assistant Commissioner for Entomology Fredrick Luyimbazi.

While on a tour of the Murchison Falls National Park recently, Luyimbazi explained that although the flies had reduced, the few left need to be wiped out.

Luyimbazi who also visited Sambiya River Lodge, Red Chilli Rest House and the UWA offices all located in the Murchison Falls National Park urged government to provide more funds for eradication of the flies.

He explained how the ministry recently received what he referred to as negative publicity towards the tourism sector which he said may upset the trade.

“A tourist who took a Uganda Safaris Packages to visit Murchison Falls National Park in early August  posted bad news on the internet of how they were swarmed by tsetse flies on arrival while cautioning others to avoid the place,” he explained.

 He however noted that an aerial spraying using environmental friendly pesticide was the answer to the flies.

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