Bwindi Impenetrable Forest

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is one of Uganda’s most important forest, home to over 470 mountain gorillas & a gorilla trekking attraction that see thousands of annual tourists to this part of Uganda.

Located in a mountainous area in southwest Uganda (near the boarder with Rwanda in the south), Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is commonly known for its famous inhabitants, the mountain gorillas, but this 331 square kilometers of tropical forest spread over a series of steep ridges and valleys is one of the largest areas in East Africa which still has Afromontane lowland forest extending to well within the montane forest belt.

Waged on the eastern edge of the Albertine Rift Valley and believed to be a Pleistocene refugium, the property is a biodiversity hot-spot with possibly the greatest number of tree species for its altitude in East Africa according to UNESCO. It is also host to a rich fauna including a number of endemic butterflies and one of the richest mammalian assemblages in Africa.

Home to almost half of the world’s mountain gorilla population, the property represents a conservation frontline as an isolated forest of outstanding biological richness surrounded by an agricultural landscape supporting one of the highest rural population densities in tropical Africa. Community benefits arising from gorilla trekking tourism and other ecotourism may be the only hope for the future conservation of this unique site.