Bwindi Impenetrable

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park was established in 1991 in south-western Uganda, on the edge of the Albertine Rift, and protects some 331 km². UNESCO inscribed it on the World Heritage List in 1994.

Its scientific value comes from continuity: Bwindi is one of the few forests in Africa that persisted through the climatic oscillations of the Pleistocene, when most African tropical forest fragmented and retreated before the arid periods. That permanence, added to an altitudinal gradient running from 1,160 to 2,600 metres, has produced an extraordinary diversity, with more than three hundred tree species and an invertebrate and bird fauna with numerous Albertine Rift endemics.

It is best known for its mountain gorillas: Bwindi holds close to half the world population of the subspecies, which in total numbers fewer than fifteen hundred individuals and is divided between this park and the Virunga volcanoes, on the border of Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Gorilla-watching tourism, with limited and expensive permits, funds much of the conservation work and generates income for the surrounding communities, although the relationship with the Batwa, displaced from the forest when the park was created, remains an unresolved matter.