Bwindi Impenetrable National Park
Bwindi Impenetrable Forest is one of Uganda’s most important rainforests and is home to over 500 mountain gorillas, and 19 habituated gorilla groups available for the gorilla trekking experience.
Located in a mountainous area in southwest Uganda (near the border 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 most significant number of tree species for its altitude in East Africa according to UNESCO. It is also host to a rich fauna, including several 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.
As names go, there’s hardly a more evocative Africa destination than The Impenetrable Forest of Bwindi. This swath of steep mountains covered in the thick, steamy jungle is just as magnificent as it sounds. The 32,092 ha (320 sq km) UNESCO World Heritage-listed Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is one of Africa’s most ancient habitats, even surviving the last Ice Age as most of the continent’s other forests disappeared.