Unveiling the Boundaries of Mgahinga National Park
Unveiling the Boundaries of Mgahinga National Park: There are a lot of scholars and tourists who are curious about the size of Mgahinga National Park. Upon revealing its borders, Mgahinga National Park is 33.9 square kilometers, with afro-montane and bamboo vegetation predominating. Due to its high altitude, the park offers picturesque views of the three Virunga mountains, which are located in Uganda. The Gahinga, Muhabura, and Sabyinyo mountains are part of Mgahinga National Park.
Unveiling the boundaries of Mgahinga Gorilla Park
When unveiling the boundaries of Mgahinga National Park, the park is situated in the Virunga Conservation Area, covering an area of over 33.9 square kilometres. Despite its modest size, the park is rich in wonders and draws visitors thanks to its distinctive activities, which increase government revenue. These include gorilla trekking, golden monkey trekking, and Batwa traditional experiences. In addition to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park, Mgahinga National Park is home to mountain gorillas, which are unique to the nation.
Being part of the Virunga conservation area, which entails Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park and the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Virunga National Park, Mgahinga National Park is situated in the Kisoro district in the southwest of Uganda, at the far end of the country’s border with Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Previously, this park was quite big, but as the population grew and human activities like farming and settlement caused it to reduce to its current size, we are grateful to the Ugandan government for gazetting this land and driving out the local population to preserve the surviving vegetation. People continued to take down trees for farming, settlement, firewood, charcoal, and other purposes as the population of the Mgahinga National Park grew. The area of Mgahinga National Park was reduced due to all this.
The Batwa people lived in Mgahinga National Park, where they coexisted with various wildlife species. The Bakiga and Bafumbira people populated the nearby territories. In Mgahinga Gorilla Park, the Batwa were able to engage in bush burning, destroying the vegetation and the habitats of numerous wild species. They could also engage in poaching, which involves killing various animals for sale, consumption, and medical use. Bakiga and Bafumbira, two nearby communities, used to clear the vegetation for firewood and make way for farming, which kept reducing the area of Mgahinga National Park. All of this ceased when the Ugandan government gazetted the national park and remained at its 33.9-acre size.
Locals living next to the park were prohibited from cutting down trees and poaching within the park. The Batwa people were forcibly removed from their houses in Mgahinga National Park and forced to relocate. Since they had never wanted to move so far from home, they settled on the park’s edge. Visitors can now arrange community tours conducted by locals if they wish to see the group of people that once called Mgahinga National Park home.
Additionally, you will visit several residences and engage with the residents during the community tours. An elderly person will tell you stories about their time in the past. Elderly people will tell you stories of their lives in the past, including their dressing styles, feeding, hunting skills, and how they survived in the jungle.
Conclusion
If you have been wondering how big Mgahinga National Park is, I suppose you now have a clear picture of unveiling the boundaries of Mgahinga National Park. The overall land area of the park is 33.9 square kilometers, making it the smallest national park in Uganda. Numerous wildlife species, including the famous mountain gorillas and golden monkeys, can be found in the national park’s bamboo, Afromontane, montane, tree heathers, and montane woods.