Uganda’s Queen Elisabeth Park:  A Protected Area Where Communities, Wildlife Live Together

By Jean-Pierre Afadhali

Unlike many protected areas, Uganda’s Queen Elisabeth Park, located in the western part of the country, hosts wildlife and communities in what conservationists refer to as a biosphere reserve.

While on a game drive in Queen Elisabeth, a visitor will notice that the protected area hosts communities to the extent that they can even use the roads inside the park.

Human-wildlife conflict is a regular occurrence near protected areas, as wild animals either destroy people’s crops or attack their livestock and even take people’s lives. As a result, some community members seek revenge through the retaliatory killings of animals.

On a recent game drive with other visitors, I saw an elephant on a main road grazing. There was no crowd around to see or chase away the amazing and gigantic creature. This is usually the case when the elephants leave their habitat.

Some communities living in the Queen Elisabeth Biosphere reserve are the descendants of cattle herders who lived in the area years back, raising the risk of human-wildlife conflicts. There are still herds of cattles in the area.

The most famous incident took place in 2013, according to a park warden who briefed us during a recent visit. The lions went and strayed into the cows and killed some. Then the owners of the cows took revenge by poisoning lions.

According to the warden, 13 lions died, a blow to conservation efforts. Since the unfortunate incident, the management decided to introduce a new activity called ‘predators tracking’  to raise funds for compensation, and made the compensation process for the victims of human-wildlife conflict faster.

Now, when an incident happens, the Uganda Wildlife Authority compensates citizens immediately. Authorities also encourage the communities to report incidents rather than poisoning animals.

Male lions are the majority in the second most-biggest park reserves in Uganda. Some could be translocated in future to other reserves in future.

According to official data, there are now 94 lions in the 1,948 square kilometres park. More male than female  which is worrying conservationists and the park management.

The kazenga channel, a great feature of the park

The kazenga channel is a splendid feature of the Queen Elisabeth Park. A natural water channel that connects Lakes Albert and Gorge and is home to a large number of animals.

Tourists take a ride of two hours  in a boat to see the majestic scenes of animals. It was an epic experience, we saw elephants, buffalos and hippos in the water and along the channel among other animals.

Uganda's most popular savanna park has a great diversity of habitats that include: lakes, savannah grasslands, forests and wetlands that serve as home to the biggest variety of large mammals in Uganda.

The park lies between Lakes Gorge and Albert with the Kazenga Channel crossing through its 700 sq. mile land area. The park was named after the Queen of England in 1954 following her visit.

The biosphere reserve is located about 389 km from the capital Kampala and can be accessed whether by road on a 6h 30min drive via Masaka Road or by a charter flight.

The game drive and the biosphere’s visit  was an amazing wildlife sighting and learning experience.