Mgahinga Gorilla National Park, national park in Uganda
Mgahinga Gorilla National Park is a protected area in southwestern Uganda near the borders with Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The area includes three extinct volcanoes of the Virunga range and dense forests that extend from bamboo groves to highland grasslands.
The area was designated as a game sanctuary by the British colonial administration in 1930 to protect mountain gorillas. National park status was granted officially only in 1991, as part of a cross-border conservation effort with Rwanda and Congo.
The name comes from Mount Gahinga, with the word referring to piles of volcanic stones that farmers once cleared from their fields. Visitors can walk through the forest with Batwa guides and learn about their traditional way of life in the woods.
The park sits about 14 kilometers from the town of Kisoro and is accessible via dirt roads that call for a four-wheel-drive vehicle. Permits for gorilla trekking should be booked several months ahead, as only a few slots are available each day.
One gorilla group, called the Nyakagezi family, regularly travels between Uganda, Rwanda, and Congo, crossing international borders. The golden monkeys live almost exclusively in the bamboo forests and are found only in this part of Uganda and neighboring Rwanda.
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