The Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) has began a drive to promote wildlife conservation and local tourism. The move is to popularize Uganda’s rich wildlife heritage among students, according to the director of tourism and business development, Eunice Nyiramahoro.
He said that there was need for the Government to give incentives to the industry to allow easy accessibility to the national parks in Uganda.
Speaking at the closure of a two-week sensitization seminar at Makerere University, Nyiramahoro said, “People are constrained because tours are expensive to local people. But the ministry of tourism is working on ways to make accessing the national parks easier.”
We need to put infrastructure in place to attract more local tourists, she said. We have heard you say that those parks are for Bazungu (whites). We want to change that, Nyiramahoro added.
The organization, She said, had given students free entrance to the parks provided they had valid student identification. Nyiramahoro said UWA was devising ways of reaching all universities to develop students’ interest in the sector.
The climax of the day was a raffle where the winner, Judith Dushimimana, a student of Psychology, won a three-day fully paid tour of Murchison Falls Game Park or Queen Elizabeth Game Park, the two most popular savanna parks in Uganda.
