Biodiversity & Wildlife Conservation Program

The program offers a unique opportunity to explore Uganda’s natural wonders, culture, and heritage while making a difference.

Promote kindness to animals and use regenerative techniques to combat deforestation, conserve biodiversity, and protect wildlife. Supported by our professional conservationists, participants will engage in eco-volunteer activities focused on protecting the environment, reforestation, tree planting, and help with environmental education and climate action while at the same time specifically addressing the wildlife and human conflicts, protection of the biodiversity ecosystems and environmental conservation.  Through creating green spaces, promoting biodiversity, and planting bee-friendly species, volunteers will contribute to the preservation of these vital pollinators. Assignments involve 4-5 hours of field tasks per day, providing hands-on learning and practical conservation efforts.

The project aims align directly with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in areas including the following Goals:

• GOAL 1: No Poverty: Ending poverty in all its forms everywhere (eradicate extreme poverty currently measured as people living on less than $1.25 a day)
• GOAL 2: Zero Hunger: Ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture
• GOAL 3: Good Health and Well-being: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
• GOAL 7: Affordable and Clean Energy: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all
• GOAL 13: Climate Action: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
• GOAL 15: Life on Land: Protect, restore, and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

In order for humanity to survive, we need nature. The widely accepted research shows that to reduce the impacts of climate change, such as drought, flooding, and famine, while maintaining healthy ecosystem services to provide food security, as well as clean water and air, 30% of the planet must be protected. The most effective solution we have to ensure healthy ecosystems that sustain all life on earth is to protect and conserve the biodiversity that still exists. One of the main causes of biodiversity loss is habitat loss and fragmentation caused by deforestation, so a simple solution would be to plant more trees. Deforestation is not only a serious threat to plant and animal biodiversity, but it is also a major contributor to global warming.

Uganda is one of the richest countries in Africa for biodiversity conservation, ranking second richest for mammals (and 13th in the World), second for birds, and seventh for higher plants. This is because several major Biomes meet here, each with its associated fauna and flora. Kibale National Park is a significant biodiversity hotspot in Uganda, home to numerous primate species, over 370 bird species, and 351 tree species. Conservation efforts focus on protecting its rich primate populations, especially the endangered chimpanzees, through community-based projects to mitigate human-wildlife conflict and research.

Critical to protecting these vital ecosystems are people. While sharing land with the wildlife, communities around the Kibale National Park often suffer from wildlife-human conflicts, leading to struggles for space and water. Human-wildlife conflict poses major threats to the well-being of both humans and animals. Crop-raiding by elephants has been devastating for small farmers, leading to food insecurity, lost opportunity costs, and even death. Crop-raiding and property damage resulted in negative attitudes by the community towards elephant conservation, and they retaliate by spearing, snaring, or poisoning elephants and chimpanzees. Such conflict between elephants, chimpanzees, and people is widespread across the Kahang village, a rural community adjacent to Kahangi National Park near Fort Portal city in western Uganda.  Kahangi village is in what is called a buffer zone or wildlife management area North of Kibale National Park. Their biggest threats are the elephants and chimpanzees. Because there are no fences around Ugandan parks, this area is where wildlife and humans often converge. Elephants, chimpanzees, baboons, Bush Pigs, and monkeys are fairly regular visitors in the Kahangi community, lured by water, bananas, maize, and other food crops which are grown in the area by the villagers. This wildlife causes intensive crop damage and frequently attacks both humans and their cattle. This understandably makes the villagers less tolerant of wildlife. They often resorted to poisoning them. There is little incentive to look after the wildlife because community members do not financially benefit from the tourism business that wildlife attracts. And their means of livelihood are undermined by that same wildlife. If people and wildlife learn to live together — inside and outside of protected areas — the future for all will thrive.

We also need to note that the communities around Kahangi village still cook using solid fuels (such as wood, crop wastes, charcoal, coal, and dung) and kerosene in open fires and inefficient stoves. This releases harmful pollutants into the air, which can cause health problems such as stroke, heart disease, and lung cancer.  Along with these health concerns, cooking over wood fires is also harmful to the environment. The Kahangi community sources or collects all their firewood by cutting the trees around the park, which, of course, depletes local forest resources and also exposes them to the wildlife. At the same time, burning firewood releases high levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, Charcoal burning and firewood fuel biomass utilization are thought to be one of the main causes of deforestation around the Kahangi village.

Relying on wood fuel also places an extra burden on women who are typically responsible for gathering and cooking over it. The more time that women spend collecting wood and cooking, the less time they have for education, work, or socializing with their family. At the same time, many families in Kahangi village raise livestock and struggle to dispose of their herd’s waste hygienically. This, coupled with poor sanitation, leads to diseases, such as diarrhoea. Additionally, the cow or pig dung releases harmful methane emissions as it breaks down.

Therefore, the Wildlife & Biodiversity Conservation Volunteering Project focuses on providing nature-based solutions to promote Biodiversity ecosystem conservation in the buffer zone around Kibale National Park, which uses a combination of physical barriers and agricultural strategies to mitigate human-wildlife conflict. Methods include using beehive fences, planting “buffer crops” like tea, gallic, coffee, and providing training to local farmers to reduce crop damage and improve community perceptions of conservation.