Uganda Tours, Uganda Safaris, Gorilla Safari News , Uganda Travel & safari

Uganda’s oldest chimpanzee, Zakayo turned 46 years, on Saturday 28th, August, 2010.

Loved by many tourists, students and children visiting the Uganda Wildlife Education Centre, Zakayo caused excitement as he celebrated his birthday with his two wives and family.

“He came out shouting and clapping as excitement filled the Uganda Wildlife Education Centre on Saturday” reports, the Daily Monitor, Uganda’s leading daily.

Zakayo is the oldest alpha male chimpanzee at the center that was formerly called Entebbe Zoo.

On his birthday, Zakayo emerged from his facility with sticks for cutting the cake that was prepared by the staff at the Uganda Wildlife Education Center. He picked some icing sugar from the cake and strutted away gobbling, giving chance to other chimps to gorge the birthday cake.

Students who had come for the occasion, recited poems about chimpanzees, sang and watched a documentary about the animals being hunted down in the wild.

Later Zakayo and his family celebrated his birthday in company of his two wives Ruth and Amina, company of Achan, the youngest chimp, as onlookers crooned more birthday songs.

Chimpanzees are among the sought after wildlife in Uganda by tourists taking their safaris in Uganda. Kibale Forest, Murchison Falls National Park, the Kyambura Gorge and Semuliki Forest are among the few forests in Uganda where  chimpanzees can be seen in the wild. There are a number of  Uganda Safaris featuring chimpanzee tracking offered by different tour operators in Uganda.

Tags: africa, chimpanzee safaris, chimpanzee watching, safaris, uganda, uganda safaris, uganda wildlife education center, uwec

Serena Hotels has widened its anthology in Uganda after the attainment of a new resort property that will complement its existing 5 star city hotel, The Kampala Serena Hotel.

Formerly identified as the Ranch on the Lake, the new addition which has been renamed Lake Victoria Serena Resort, is wholly owned by the Pearl Development Group and will be managed by Serena Hotels under its local company, TPS (Uganda). The hotel was opened on the 1st of October with a new look like its sister and elderly Hotel, Kampala Serena.

The New Lake Victoria Serena Resort is located just 30km from Entebbe International Airport and 15Km from Kampala city and it is placed on the shores of Africa’s largest fresh water Lake and source of the River Nile, Lake Victoria.
The New Lake Victoria Serena Hotel has a total of 124 spacious guest rooms and each has a private balcony offering stunning views of the Lake, a choice of restaurants and bars and the state-of- the- art conferencing facilities that make it an ideal venue for out of town conferences and workshops. The resort also boasts a fully fledged Spa facility alongside a modern gymnasium, featuring the latest in digital work-out technology.
In addition, the hotel has a 18-hole golf course and a marina attachment under construction

The Serena Hotels’ Managing Director, Mr. Mahmud Janmohamed said: “Serena is an internationally recognized brand with a strong presence in Uganda. With this new property we hope to help broaden the appeal of Lake Victoria as a destination by offering both a value for money product and the reliability that goes with an internationally respected name”.
Its location strategically along lake Victoria may lead to a tremendous increase in demand for tourism products on lake Victoria and hence development.

By Tanah Hadijah
UGANDA TRAVEL NEWS

A six-year-old chimpanzee Amaanyi was returned to her home in Rweshama Forest Reserve in Masindi district on Sunday after being hospitalized in Entebbe for over a month.

Having bean caught up in a trap, Amaanyi ‘s leg was severed because the bones had been crushed .

The chimpanzee was escorted by a team that included Dr. Andrew Seguya, the director of the Uganda Wildlife Education Centre (UWEC).

DR .Seguya said Amaanyi was transferred to UWEC, formermerly known as Entebbe Zoo, on July 27 where he underwent two surgeries.

In a zealuos mood , he said that he felt euphoric this having been the first time such an operation had taken place here. He added that this is the first time a chimpanzee has been rescued, treated and returned where it was rescued from.

This is a conservative move for Chimpanzees are an endangered species, and if nothing is done to protect them and their habitat, they would become extinct. As the chimps look for food, they sometimes end up in traps set up by the local people to protect their gardens from destruction.

Amaanyi was sedated at 3:00pm by doctors David Hyeroba and Peter Apell a field programmes manager under the Jane Goodall Institute, and gently carried into the forest on a tarpaulin. She gained consciousness at 4:00pm and climbed on the nearby trees.

Apell commented that the they were excited about the prospect of the chimpanzee re-uniting with her group. He added that they had removed chimps from traps before, but this was different because her leg was damaged and needed further medical attention.

Apell, said about 25% of the population of chimpanzees in Budongo had injuries caused by traps.

BY Tanah Hadijah

Uganda Travel News

The Hoima District chairperson, Mr George Bagonza has articulated apprehension over the high rate at which water sources are drying up in the district. Mr Bagonza made the remarks while handing over piglets and chicks to 30 private forest owners at Kyamaleera Wildlife Education Centre in Kyabigambire Sub-county, Hoima District last week.

The contribution was presented and offered by the Chimpanzee Sanctuary and Uganda Wildlife Education Centre to the beneficiaries. He said the high rate of environmental degradation is affecting water sources and food reserves. He complained that the degradation is caused by Farmers who have encroached on water sources while others have cut down trees haphazardly to set up gardens a factor that had dried up boreholes and wells because the water table has drastically fallen .
He said the reduced rainfall being received in the district has led to low agricultural yields in households. He added that climate change is threatening food security, whereas many livestock farmers are struggling to get adequate water to feed their animals.

Mr Bagonza advised residents to plant trees to curb the effects of climate change.

Uganda Travel News
TANAH HADIJAH

Swiss born photographer and writer David Pluth passed away last weekend at the Nyungwe Forest National Park in Rwanda, while on assignment in the country. David has been a long-time friend and supporter of this central eastern African nation, where in 2003, he produced the first ever national tourism brochure for Rwanda. He was also connected to the National Geographic Society and had his photographs published in several books. His friends in Rwanda and around the world were left stunned by the sad news, and this column expresses sincere condolences to the late David’s family and friends.

By Tanah Hadijah
Africa Travel News

OVER 500 Uganda cultural and natural tourists sites are in jeopardy owed to lack of appropriate laws, a senior tourism official has said.

Rose Nkaale Mwanga, the interim commissioner of the department of museum and monuments in the tourism industry reported that historial sites like Wamala Tombs are putrefying while other like Ntutsi Mounds are being ruined by impinges .

Ntutsi is an area formerly inhabited by the Bachwezi people who had migrated from Ethiopia before it was occupied by the Bantu, while the Wamala Tombs is the old burial site for Kabaka Ssuna II of Buganda.

Rose alleged that the danger of these sites is due to lack of funds to maintain them, ignorance of the people neighbouring the sites, and land encroachment.

She added that the department had recorded 1,000 sites but only three had been registered with the World Heritage Sites. She mentioned Kasubi Tombs, Bwindi Impenetrable Forest , Rwenzori Mountain Park as the most neglected sites

She made these the annotations last Wednesday during a sensitisation workshop on conservation and management of cultural heritage properties in Uganda at the National Museum in Kampala.

“We are in the process of registering Kibiro Salt Gardens in Hoima district but it is tedious and expensive,” she added.

The programme officer for the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation, Daniel Kaweesi, appealed to the Government to sensitise the masses about the importance of cultural sites and heritage.

Kaweesi said blamed the Government for not considering culture as a tourism product and yet it is of great value. He applauded culture as a rewarding tourism product and countries earn a lot from it.

He also exhorted the Government to enforce a law on the patent rights to cultural products like bark cloth.

By Tanah Hadijah
Uganda Safari News

More than 300 Karamojong families have settled on the 20sqkm piece of land at Moruajore in Namalu sub-county, Nakapiripirit district, that was formally part of Pian-Upe wildlife game reserve.

The ethnic Pian Karamojong, the majority on the land, came from Amalera Prisons where they were squatters while others abandoned rented houses in the trading centre.

Edyau Ecodu, the game reserve warden said other settlers were those that had been on Kampala streets between 2005 and 2008 and had been evicted by city enforcement officers .

Edyau said the appeal to the district authorities is to regulate the settlement in the area to stop conflicts
.

John Nangiro theLC5 chairman of Nakapiripirit said that the delay by the Government to approve the district land board had created difficulties in regulating settlement in the former game reserve.

Parliament in 2002 de-gazetted part of the game reserve to create space for settlement and cultivation following the 1995 joint assessment study of the wildlife protected areas by the tourism ministry and district leaders.

A 68-year-old-Pian elder known as Peter Lokwany said that people started migrating to the area last year in December and more arrive daily. He added that Some of the challenges the group he rules has is starvation and shortage of clean water. There’s only one borehole in this area.He added that the district promised to send us seeds and farm implements like hoes but we have not received them.

The elder said most of the new settlers survive on selling bundles of firewood that fetch between sh500 and sh2,000. But Nangiro said sh15m from the National Agricultural Advisory Services had been secured to buy the items.

He also said that they plan to buy 1,500 hoes, 1,000kgs of maize and 500kgs of rice for the settlers though the formalities in the procurement exercise that are delaying the process.

Uganda travel News
By Tanah Hadijah

LIBYAN leader Muammar Gadaffi was elected chairman of the African Union on Monday. IN his speech, he made it clear that he would pursue his vision of a United States of Africa despite reluctance from many members.

Dressed in golden robes and cap and hailed as “king of kings” by traditional African leaders who accompanied him, Gadaffi accepted a gavel from the outgoing chairman, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, at a summit in Ethiopia. The traditional leaders included Uganda’s Omukama of Bunyoro, Solomon Gafabusa Iguru and Toro Queen Mother Best Kemigisa. The summit is attended by President Yoweri Museveni and his wife Janet.

Gadaffi told the summit that his project to create a united continental government would be approved at the next meeting in July unless there was a majority against it. The AU normally relies on consensus in reaching decisions.

Gadaffi’s election was treated almost like a coronation by a group of customary African leaders dressed in colourful robes and headgear who accompanied him to the conference hall. “On behalf of the traditional kings, on behalf of all the sultans, on behalf of all the princes, on behalf of all the customary rulers, I want to say thank you to the king of kings who we have now crowned,” declared one of them, King Tossoh Gbaguidi of Benin.

Gadaffi, supported by some AU members like Senegal’s Abdoulaye Wade, has been pushing for a unity government for years, saying it is the only way to meet the challenges of globalisation, fighting poverty and resolving conflicts without Western interference. But others, led by regional economic powerhouse South Africa, see the idea as a distant and impractical prospect that would infringe the sovereignty of member states, although all 53 members of the AU say they agree with the idea in principle.

The first day of this summit on Sunday again pulled back from accelerating the process. Kikwete told reporters the meeting had agreed to replace the AU Commission with an “authority” rather than an immediate pan-regional government as it had proposed. This would be launched at the next summit in July.

He said this would move it closer to a federal government.

Kikwete said the leaders agreed in principle on a single government but that it was could not be realised at this stage.

Kikwete said the authority would have a President and be mandated to handle issues such as poverty eradication, the free movement of African people, infrastructure development and climate change. The others are epidemic and pandemic management, international trade negotiations, peace and security and foreign affairs.

By Tanah Hadijah

Uganda Africa News

ON Wednesday 28th of January 2009 ,authorities of Queen Elizabeth National park in Western Uganda with their counterparts from Queen Elizabeth country park in the UK signed an alliance five year memorandum of Understanding at an occasion led by the Deputy British high commissioner Mr. Phillip Mani. IN his speach at Mweya Education Centre, the manager of Queen Elizabeth Conservation area, MR. Tom Okello said that the pact is aimed at promoting and developing the two Parks as tourists sites. The pact stated that the two parks will be exchanging staff and sharing ideas . Mr Mani applauded the existing relationship between the two countries .

By Tanah Hadijah
Uganda safari News

Indiaanticpates to triple trade with Africa in the next five years to come. The business is expected to reach $100b, as it tries to make a foundation of ties in a region where Asian rival China has made tremendous business prosperity.

Notwithstanding an economic slowdown, India is projecting a veer of schemes in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), agriculture, small industry, oil pipelines, mining, chemical industry, power generation and transmission among others.

The government also plans to double credit lines to $5.4b over five years and provide $500m for projects from the “Aid to Africa” budget, Pranab Mukherjee, India’s External Affairs minister said during a India-Africa business summit in New Delhi.

Business leaders and politicians from at least 32 African countries and India vowed this week to improve bilateral trade and relations, which date back to the British colonial period when thousands of Indians were taken to Africa as treaty laborers.

BY Tanah Hadijah
Uganda travel News