This is the second story in the Mongabay Series – Protected Areas in East Africa. Read Part One here. KITABU, Uganda — It’s mid-afternoon in Kitabu, a small town nestled in the hills of western Uganda at the foot of the Rwenzori mountains. Neatly manicured plots of beans and cassava line the road that leads toward it. Women and young children carry bundles of firewood on their heads under the hot October sun. Far below, a vast green-and-brown savanna unfolds into the horizon, dotted with glittering lakes and rivers. This is Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda’s “most popular tourist destination,” and one of the most important ecosystems in East Africa. Its forests, swamps and grasslands span nearly 2,000 square kilometers (about 765 square miles). There are savanna elephants here, along with lions that nap on tree branches, buffalo, leopards, antelopes, chimpanzees, hippos, and more than 600 different bird species. “Queen,” as the park administrators call it, is a UNESCO “man and biosphere reserve” — one of the few protected wildlife habitats of its scale left on the continent. The school here in Kitabu isn’t a typical one. It was set up in 2018 by a group of former wildlife poachers, and is one of a few around Queen Elizabeth that get support from donors abroad or, occasionally, from the agency responsible for managing the park, the Uganda Wildlife Authority. Its purpose is to educate orphans whose families can’t afford school fees. Of the students in attendance here, 63 don’t have…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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