Get ready to watch the birds

Uganda Has a Great Variety of Birds, and Big Birding day next Saturday, is a good chance to seek them out.

There is good news for tourists: we have free access to all the National parks and conservation areas under Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) on November 29^th, 2014. That day is the long awaited Big Birding day, which Uganda is taking seriously for the second year running. With over 1,050 bird species in Uganda, such a day was long overdue.

“This exercise is expected to improve interests in the bird watching. You can watch birds anywhere. It can be in Kampala City, in your backyard or in a forest. Every region of the country will have a team involved in the bird watching for 24 hours,” said Steven Masaba of UWA. Given the UWA officer, birdwatchers have options of many destinations that are excellent bird habitats, but with a bonus of other attractions to make the trip worthwhile. That day 500 Guides will be all eyes and ears recording the species that they encounter in the swamps, mountains, forests and lake shores.

“Participants will explore the countryside to see birds in flight, listen to their songs, and see them court,” said Uganda Tourist Board (UTB) spoke’s person Edwin Muzahura. “to hone our bird watching skills, the occasion will be blessed by birders, Tim Appleton and Bill Thompson form the US and UK respectively.”

Bill Thompson is Editor of Bird Watcher’s Digest and author of Backyard Birds. He has seen and heard 1,000 different bird species. “These are no mean achievements. Bird Watcher’s Digest is the oldest and most popular bi-monthly magazine devoted to birds and bird-watching enthusiast around the world,” Muzahura pointed out. These birds have millions of social media followers from across the world and it is hoped that their participating in Uganda’s Big Birding Day will highlight the country’s various attractions to the rest of the world. “Thompson and Appleton will be able to sell destination Uganda, among their social media followers,” Muzahura said.

Uganda Tour Guide Association President, Herbert Byaruhanga revealed that an average Bird watcher stays longer and spends more while in the country. “They between $2.000 (Sh5m) and $7,000 (sh17.5m) on accommodation, a bird guide transport, buying mementoes and having fun.” Byaruhanga notes that Uganda should be able to identify a nitche in birding given the variety of avian species as a comparative advantage over other regional destinations.

PLANNING A BIRDING TRIP

Families, friends and workmates cold pool resources to fuel a van or public means of transport to commute throughout the day at affordable rates. The fares vary and depend on the distance and ones negotiating skills. The national parks have budget accommodations ranging from sh30,000 to sh50,000 per night. Meals cost sh10,000 and above. Up market facilities are also available at anything between $75 and $300 (Sh 187,000 and sh750,000) per night. Alternatively one could cut costs by travelling with a tent or hiring one.

Kidepo Valley national Park boasts an extensive list of about 475 bird species.  This makes it second to Queen Elizabeth National Park. A few species of note are the Ostrich, Kori bustard and Karamaja apalis. Kidepo is notable for its birds of prey. Of the 56 species recorded, 14 including Verreaux’s eagle, Egyptian vulture and Pygm falcon – are endemic to Karamoja region. Presently, there is no comprehensive survey of birds found there. On this day visitors stand a good chance of adding to the known numbers.

YOU CAN SEE ANIMALS TOO

While scouting for birds in Kidepo, expect to see exciting Fauna such as lions, leopards, spotted hyenas, and jackals. Also regulary seen species are elephants, Burchell’s zebra, Rothschild’s giraffe, Cape buffalo and several antelope’s types.

Queen Elizabeth National Park is understandable Uganda’s most popular tourist destination. It is endowed with over 600 species of birds in its diverse eco-system set against the backdrop of the Mt. Rwenzori. It is a photographer’s dream  come true with enormous craters punctuating the rolling green hills, Kazinga channel with its banks lined with hippos, buffalo and elephants.

In the Ishasha plains are the famous tree climbing lions and herds of the Uganda Kob.

Mburo National Park, located close to the kampala – Mbarara highway, is home to 350 bird species.  These live with Zebra’s impalas, elands, buffalos and hyenas, among others. Together with 13 other lakes in the area, Lake Mburo forms part of a 50km wetland system linked by a swamp. The park is well suited to host hundreds of birds in its wooded savanna interspersed with rocky ridges, gorges and patches of papyrus swamp.

Murchison Falls National Park has 451 species of birds and 76 different mammals. The park is bisected by the Victoria Nile, which plunges 45 meters over the remnant rift valley wall, creating Murchison falls. The falls are the centerpiece of the park and the final event in an 80km stretch of rapids. This stretch of river provides one of Uganda’s most remarkable wildlifespectacles. Notable visitors to this park in the past have included Winston Churchill, Theodore Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway and several British Royals.

There are other ideal places to go bird-watching such as at Mabira Forest, Makerere University, Lutembe beach, Uganda Wildlife Education Center, Gaba Beach and Kasenge forest in Mukono. Your backyard can also be a good start.

Kony video is a sad trailer for Uganda’s Invisible Generation

Our belovedUganda has had plenty of play in international media in recent weeks. First, President Museveni was in London for the Somalia Conference and gave what sources who attended say was his shortest-ever speech, less than 10 minutes, but mostly on point.

Somalia is one of the areas that Museveni deserves credit for putting troops on the ground when more powerful states had failed or were dithering, and helping bring some stability to that country. Yet his appearance on the BBC’s Hard Talk programme elicited no questions on how to ensure Somalia does not slip back, but plenty on the anti-gay Bill.

Then there was that report in the UK’s Daily Mail, which alleged that a local gang had poisoned two foreign tourists after failing to rob them, leading to the death of one. In fact, the unfortunate pair had overdosed on cocaine, which they had wilfully (and illegally) procured.

The first case can be put down to playing to the gallery while the second can be explained away as an unfortunate case of not letting the facts get in the way of a good story.

It is the third – the Kony2012 YouTube video – that has drawn more controversy over its inaccuracies and over-simplifications. Your columnist agrees with many of the criticisms of the video – and there are many – but is not surprised by them.

International media has long perfected the reductive art of trying to explain a complex, foreign story to an uninterested domestic audience in the traditional 90 seconds or three minutes of a television news clip.

They often adopt the Hollywood model, adopting a good guy and a bad guy narrative, throwing in some exotic props (dreadlocked, mystical rebels with a penchant for abducting children suit the bill) and tie in something closer to the audience (the US army is helping save the world so keep our boys in prayer or call the number on your screen to donate right now).

The video by Invisible Children had it all. A few Ugandans have tried to repair the damage on social media, pointing out inaccuracies in the video et cetera but a lot of that is reactive and finds that many have already moved on to the next viral video.

The biggest concern shouldn’t be the inaccuracies or the lack of context in the video – that is to be expected – but that there are few, if any, alternative realities to correct them. We are simply not telling enough of our own stories.

Mzungus have written most of the books I have read on the LRA war. Italian researchers have done a lot of the research on the Rwenzori Mountains, including its disappearing glaciers. Two Mzungus own the most notable guide to the local tourism industry (on top of owning many of the resorts).

Fifty years after independence, one can count less than that number of good, insightful books written by Ugandans telling the story of our nation and the men (and women) who built it.

This is not to say that we are indifferent to good stories or incapable of telling them. Far from it. Instead we are addicted to Mexican soap operas and slapstick comedy that passes for news bulletins, bootleg Hollywood movies that cost a dime a dozen and voyeuristic navel-gazing gossip.

Log onto YouTube and you will see thousands of fancy (albeit faux) music videos and comedy skits shot and uploaded by our young, creative people. It is not that we can’t create; an entire generation of young Ugandans have been cuddled into an unthinking, ask-no-questions life of merrymaking.

It is a generation that knows Kanye West but not George Kanyeihamba; Ben 10 but not Ben Kiwanuka; Lady Gaga but not Princess Bagaya. We are not just talking about invisible children but an invisible generation.

The older generation is not any better, I’m afraid. A few years ago newspapers reported that government had postponed the northern Uganda post-conflict recovery programme because it couldn’t find its portion of the money to supplement what donors had put in. Where was the outrage?

 By: Bruce Amp

My Trip to the Land of A Thousand Hills last November 2011

It all began with booking my return ticket to Kigali form Entebbe Gate way with the wings of East Africa (AIR UGANDA) very good aircraft; indeed you pleased me with your onboard services. Uganda is such a perfect tourist destination but Rwanda is a virgin land with many tourism potentials

Kigali City surrounded by many hills including Kacyiru, Nyabugogo and Nyamirambo make it the best place to live with fresh green around, serene environment and above all with clean sanity around not like her sister Kampala full of pot holes and garbage every comer you step ahead of you.

I can miss to narrate to you the most beautiful small hotel in Kigali, Kigali Select Hotel Just 10 Minutes drive from Kigali Airport with an exceptional view serving you with a gourmet breakfast and much personalized service touch  

After my business assignments, I visited the Genocide memorial centre in Nyabugogo where millions of Rwanda’s vanished and made to rest, with massive graves surrounded by beautiful gardens of importance. I loved the garden of children; this is made of only fruits as everyone believe children and fruits are inseparable. But the situation here is painful as you look at thousands of children’s photos that were once victims of the massive genocide, babies from 2 days old imagine. May their soul rest in internal peace. That very evening was my flight back home (dust full city Kampala) couple with constant power black out

Posted by Edris Kamoga

Tour Manager African Pearl Safaris-Uganda

Wildlife website to cost sh245m

The Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) is building a new wildlife Portal at a cost of $100 000 (about sh245m), top officials have announced.

The site will be used to market Uganda as a top tourist destination and to enable online bookings and payments. Adrew Seguya, the UWA boss said the site is being build in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and will be ready by March.

“We are working on a new interactive wildlife portal with USAID. On it we will be able to update animal distributions in real time to ease planning. It will be the best in Africa when completed,” he said.

Seguya was addressing an Association of Uganda Tour Operators (AUTO) meeting at Serena Hotel Kampala on Monday where he was the Guest speaker. He said the Glass wall in the departure lounge of Entebbe will be branded with various animal images in effort to market Uganda as a top tourist spot following last week’s rebrand of the airport.

 “A giant gorilla effigy will be placed at the airport with the words “this is gorilla country” in the second phase of rebranding,” Seguya said. The wildlife body recently invited bids through the New Vision for the provision of the provision of a Cashless Revenue collection Management System to enable cashless payments and to track tourists while within the parks.

Boniface Byamukama, the AUTO president, said the increase in membership by 60 t0 125 members had necessitated and upward revision of membership fee.

He disclosed that recent positive media reviews of the country as the 2012 top destination had increased tourist numbers with all resorts in a National Park fully booked between December 16 and 25.

Tourism plays a vital role

For the first time the New Vision has had the front page tourism headline. The first story entitled “Uganda first choice tourism destination” and a few weeks later the paper carried another article entitled “Bye bye Bujagali”. This has scared some of us in the tourism industry. Uganda has several tourism attractions ranging from Mountain Gorillas, over 1 000 species of birds, the snow caped Rwenzori mountains, among others. 

That is why during CHOGM 2007, Uganda was marked as a country “Gifted by Nature”. It is true several developments have been achieved including establishment of an independent ministry of tourism and wildlife. That, not withstanding, however, many of the features that are supposed to attract tourists to Uganda are Under threat. For example Bujagali which has been only second to the Lake Victoria falls is now gone though we still have some rapid downstream. The issue of Mabira is not yet resolved yet Mabira is one of the surviving peri-urban tropical rain forests remaining in cetral Uganda. It is home to several primates and birds that could propel urban tourism in future. The issue of Uganda Musium is still in Court after a proposal to demolish it in favor of the East African Trade Center. 

The proposal to scrap government sponsorship of the course of tourism Management at Makerere University was strongly resisted by some of us. The discovery of vast oil deposits in the Albertine Rift Valley has not done tourism any good as it remains to be seen whether the flora and fauna in Uganda’s largest conservation areas of Murchison Falls and Queen Elizabeth will be spared. Tourism plays a very important role as it leads to sustainable foreign exchange inflow even amidst poor marketing abroad

  

Tourism Uganda’s growth engine

It will take a Zillion years for Uganda’s agriculture to compete with Denmark’s
I was delighted when Lonely Planet, an International Publisher of the world’s largest travel guide book named Uganda the world’s number one tourist destination come 2012.

I have argued in many in many for over 15 years that tourism should be promoted as Uganda’s engine of growth. With 50% of the world’s mountain gorillas, 7% of the world’s mammal species, 11% of the world’s birds’ species, the longest river and the widest lake in the world, Uganda has no equal in eco-tourism.
To put this in perspective, there are about 750 highland mountain gorillas in the world, but 400 live in Uganda, the rest in Rwanda. The US with an area of 3,600,000 square miles, has 600 bird species, Europe with a wider area has 700 bird species, while Uganda, measuring just 93,000 square miles, boasts of 1,500 bird species. One can watch over 250 bird species just with in Uganda Wild life Education Center.

Uganda has high agricultural potential but almost zero comparative or competitive advantage over Denmark, the US, Brazil or South Africa, because potential remains potential, until it’s exploited.
It will take a Zillion years for Uganda’s agriculture to compete with Denmark’s, in yield per capita, marketing, research, quality control, access to finance, weather and climate management among others.

Mind you, even after such long strides, Danish farmers still get finance from subsidies from their government.
The Uganda farmer, still at the mercy of weather vagaries, has to suffer high production costs arising out of poor infrastructure and its attendant issues. Yet after all those uncertainties, the Uganda farmer seeks to compete with other world farmers, on their terms a tall order! Needless to say, we would need to invite in tourism just as much as in agriculture, but the promise of success and rate of return on investment is much higher and safe with tourism than agriculture.

I love tourism because tourism come here, with dollars, to sleep in our hotels eat our food, drink our coffee, use our bodas, buy our fuel, buy memorabilia and other Ugandan products, all on our terms, and leave all those dollars here. They are not like “investors” who come here to, pay about $100 (Sh259,000) for a work permit, then take out any amount hey want!
When I was shadow minister for agriculture, I recommended in one alternative policy Paper, that Uganda should promote tourism as the engine of growth so that tourists come to Uganda to eat our food and drink our coffee on our terms.

The recommendation was blocked by the leader of the opposition and opposition Chief Whip, who believed that as agriculture minister I had no business promoting tourism, besides, agriculture is Uganda’s mainstay, blah blah…………Thanks Lonely Planet, you have made my point.
Tourists to Malaysia have grown from 5.5 million in 1998 to 24.6 million tourists in 2010, yet Malaysia, about the same size and about same population as Uganda, has less to offer.
If Uganda could receive 25 million tourists per year, with each tourist spending just $500 (sh1.3m) in Uganda, we could easily raise $ 12.5b (240b) per year.

Today Uganda earns only $600m (sh1.35b) per year from tourism, with virtually no investment and about the same from agriculture, with so much investment. With $12.59 per year from just tourism, who needs the “oil curse”, which oil more over is estimated to last 30 years, when tourism last forever.
Let us go tourism because it is more than looking at gorillas, it also about an experience.

The Writer is the President Uganda Federal Alliance >> Beti Kamya

By: Bruce Ampumuza

Ministry starts national tour guides training

The tourism industry has started a country wide training programme for tour guides in customer care.
The training is part of the efforts aimed at boosting the marketing of tourism industry, which is becoming the leading foreign exchange earner, generating over $600m last year.
“The training of UWA and private guides is, therefore, one strategy of addressing the challenge of inadequate professionalism in our tourism industry” , Prof. Ephraim Kamuntu, the tourism minister, observed in a speech read by Andrew Seguya, the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) acting Boss.
This was at the pass out of 84 tour guides from different conservation areas in western Uganda at the Makerere University Biological Field station at Kanyawara in Kabale National Park.
The minister said much as Uganda was highly endowed, unless these attractions were packaged into acceptable tourism products coupled with skilled manpower in customer care, they will remain dreams and idealistic geographic items on our maps and records.
He also noted that findings have projected Uganda’s tourism sector to be the leading in Africa.
“We are excited by the recent ranking by the Lonely Planet that identified Uganda as the best tourism destination in 2012”. “We should capitalize on that achievement and aim higher,” the minister added. Lonely Planet is a global travel magazine.
Seguya pointed out that local have basked in a historical belief that tourism is only for the affluent from overseas, yet it is a track of our heritage.
He compared Uganda with the US, which earns $4b annually from  bird watching, and yet they have very few birds. He also noted that Europe has only 700 birds but Uganda with 1,057 birds, of which 335 species were found in Kibaale National Park alone. Does not even earn $1b out of bird watching
He attributed this to negative attitude by Ugandans and inadequate customer care accorded to visitors by the wildlife employees.
Seguya said that the training programme was one of the measures to promote domestic tourism and sensitize people about their heritage. Training of guides, he said, was pertinent in causing collective responsibility for natural conservation among the public.
“I encourage you all to use the skills you have learnt to develop our tourism potential further so that we all benefit from this resource.” He said modern structures would be erected in all the conservation areas in the next two years.
Herbert Byaruhanga, the chairman of Uganda Safari Guides Association, which conducted the training together with UWA, said capacity building was necessary for Uganda to take a comparative advantage in their tourism sector.
He emphasized the need for specialized training of guides in bird watching to take the front-line in portraying the image of the sector
By: Bruce Ampumuza