UWA Scoring Higher! Tourism Surges As Dr Musinguzi Turns Conservation Into Economic Gold

Wildlife tourism has returned to the centre of the country’s economic conversation, with the Uganda Wildlife Authority reporting that visitor numbers and earnings have not only recovered from the COVID-19 slump but are pushing past what the sector was recording before the pandemic shut down international travel. For a country whose forests shelter half the world’s remaining mountain gorillas and whose parks hold some of East Africa’s most intact ecosystems, the rebound was perhaps inevitable. But officials say it has not happened by chance.

The authority has spent the recovery years investing heavily in the kind of conservation infrastructure that makes wildlife stick around and tourists feel safe coming to see it. Drones now monitor park boundaries, electric fencing has been rolled out across several protected areas, and anti-poaching units have been reinforced. The goal behind all of it is reducing the running tension between animals and the farming communities that border the parks, a conflict that has historically cost both sides dearly.

“We are implementing technology to curb cases of animals leaving parks to destroy people’s crops. Through drones, electric fencing, improved roads, and strengthened anti-poaching efforts, we are reducing human-wildlife conflict and protecting both people and animals,” UWA Executive Director Dr. James Musinguzi said.

Perhaps no story captures the scale of Uganda’s conservation ambition better than what has happened with rhinos. The animals were hunted to local extinction, erased entirely from the country’s landscape. A slow, deliberate breeding programme at the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary started with just six individuals. That population has now reached 60, and the authority has begun moving animals back into the Ajai Wildlife Reserve, effectively rewriting a chapter that looked permanently closed. Tour operators have quickly taken notice, building travel packages that combine Ajai with Murchison Falls National Park nearby, creating new routes and spreading tourist spending into communities that previously sat outside the industry’s reach.

Gorilla tourism in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park continues to anchor Uganda’s international reputation, and lion populations in Queen Elizabeth National Park are reported to be stabilising. To add to the offering, UWA is preparing to conduct Uganda’s first comprehensive chimpanzee census in the northern sector of Bwindi, a move expected to unlock new tracking experiences alongside the gorilla permits that already sell out months in advance.

Dr. Musinguzi has been direct about where all of this fits within the larger national picture. “Before COVID-19, tourism was Uganda’s leading foreign exchange earner, and we have now recovered strongly. Nature-based tourism remains our biggest attraction, and this places conservation at the center of economic growth,” he said.

President Museveni’s economic growth blueprint lists tourism alongside agriculture, minerals, energy, and manufacturing as the sectors expected to drive a tenfold expansion of the economy. That framing gives wildlife conservation a weight it has not always enjoyed in policy circles, tying the fate of a forest elephant or a tracking trail directly to national development targets.

On the domestic front, the Entebbe Zoo, formally known as the Uganda Wildlife Conservation Education Centre, has been ranked among Africa’s top zoological institutions by the Pan African Association of Zoos and Aquaria. The authority is now planning regional wildlife centres in other parts of the country, an acknowledgement that most Ugandans will never make it to Bwindi or Kidepo but deserve access to their own natural heritage regardless.

Communities living along park boundaries are also being drawn further into the economic logic of conservation. A UWA fund channels money toward educating children from families that have suffered losses to wildlife, while concession deals bring private tourism investors into the parks under arrangements designed to create local employment. The calculation is deliberate: people who earn from wildlife are far less likely to poach it or support those who do.

“Tourism is Uganda’s leading natural advantage and a key pillar in the country’s economic growth strategy. Growing tourism means growing jobs, communities, and national pride,” Dr. Musinguzi said.

UWA’s communications team used a recent media engagement to press journalists on their role in shaping how Uganda is perceived abroad, arguing that inaccurate or negative coverage has a measurable effect on visitor numbers. “When information is not verified or is presented negatively, it affects the destination image. We encourage journalists to engage us, verify facts, and tell the full story of conservation progress,” Assistant Commissioner Bashir Hangi said.

“Every tourist who enters a park contributes to conservation and supports livelihoods. Promoting tourism is therefore promoting national development,” he added.

The argument UWA is making, and has been making with growing confidence, is that the health of Uganda’s economy and the health of its wild spaces are not separate questions. They are, at this point, the same question.