African Parks commits to long term protection of Nyungwe National park
African Parks commits to long term protection of Nyungwe National park
African Parks commits to long term protection of Nyungwe National park: The Nyungwe national park of Rwanda is one of two primate parks of Rwanda. It boosts a number of primate life, a quarter of Africa’s primates like the chimpanzees, the l’hoest’s monkeys, vervet monkeys, blue monkey, owl faced monkeys, red tailed monkeys among the many. Nyungwe forest is one of Africa’s oldest rainforest with a population of 500 chimpanzees and a big group of 600 black and white colobus monkeys, 300 bird species, a number of reptiles and amphibians, 90 mammals, 1,000 plants with 160km hiking trails recorded and most of the existent species are endemic. Nyungwe forest national park is located in the south western part of Rwanda bordering Burundi in the heart of the Albertine Rift .
On October 7th 2020, the African parks a conservation non-profit organization along with the government of Rwanda has come to a new 20 year agreement for Nyungwe national park. The African parks have been the managing authority for the Akagera national park, the wildlife park of Rwanda. This announcement comes after a successful 10 year partnership between Rwanda Development Board (RDB) and the African parks managing the Akagera national park. This partnership saw the revival of the ecological and economic state of the park. Akagera national park is located in the eastern part of Rwanda and represents one of the most important wetland systems in the region.
This new agreement looks at a sustainable management of this approximately 1,019 km squared forested land in Rwanda. It also aims at preserving the Nyungwe forest national park biodiversity and see to a long time benefit to the local people of Rwanda as well as the wildlife of the country. The partnership looks at making Nyungwe forest national park a leading tourist destination for Rwanda safaris or any Rwanda tours. The communities that stay around the park were also called upon to collaborate and welcome the new partners of the park.
The already existing laws of the Nyungwe forest national park will be improved with an aim of ensuring sustainability in the park also more investments and stimulants are to be put in place to ensure more visits made to the park in terms of tourism. African parks along with the Government of Rwanda look at optimizing the potential that Nyungwe forest national park has as a tourism destination. This event was honored by the presence of Peter Fearnhead the Chief Executive director of African parks and Clare Akamanzi who were both excited about this new partnership for Nyungwe. Rwanda is noted as one of the world’s foremost luxury ecotourism destinations.
Nyungwe forest national park is now the 19th national park to join the African parks portfolio and all this has been combined efforts from the Rwanda development board, the Wyss Foundation, Rob and Melani Walton foundation, the players of the People’s postcode lottery and foundation segre. African parks manages 19 national parks and protected areas in partnership with the governments and the local communities and this could total to an area of 14.2 million hectares in the 11 countries. These countries include Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Angola, Benin, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
The Rwanda Development Board (RDB) has been previously been responsible for the Nyungwe forest national park and the Volcanoes national park Rwanda that is the home to the mountain gorillas of Rwanda. The RDB is a government run body that is in charge of transforming the Rwandan business, investment, innovation and tourism sector to a positive curve. The RDB has also been pushing for the fast track growth of Rwanda’s economy especially by enabling the private sector to thrive. (African Parks commits to long term protection of Nyungwe National park. )
