Uganda woos travel firms to save habitats for elephants

PIONEERING private-sector deals to encourage tourists to visit Uganda’s wildernesses could save wildlife habitats, including spots where elephant numbers are rising for the first time in decades.

Cash-strapped Uganda struggles to cover the costs of looking after its national parks and reserves. Despite this, elephant herds are growing, bucking the trend in the rest of Africa, where a third of all elephants alive in 2007 has since been poached.

To safeguard that progress, leading international tourism firms attended an event in Uganda on Friday to see new investment opportunities designed to funnel funding from responsible tourism into conservation. Among the new sites are national parks where Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn filmed The African Queen.

The tourism industry reckons Uganda has great potential if it can be better developed. The Giants Club Conservation and Tourism Investment Forum was designed to help that happen, bringing in firms focused on responsible and sustainable business.

Evgeny Lebedev, owner of the London Evening Standard and the patron of the Giants Club, took part. He said Uganda is known as the Pearl of Africa bacause of its beauty and rich wildlife, but faced challenges in developing its potential to the full.

He added: ‘That is why we have been working hand-inhand with the Ugandan government to develop ways that the right conservationcompatible companies can invest into these areas and develop them in the best interests of the wildlife, of Uganda and of its people.

‘Only by getting the private sector to invest in these areas can the revenue be generated to pay for the work required and to create the jobs for the local communities that will ensure they want to protect the wildlife too.’