KAZINGA BUKORWE COMMUNITY PROJECT - EXCLUSIVE CAMPS AND LODGES, UGANDA

Ishasha Community Project set up by Exclusive Camps and Lodges in conjunction with Prime/West, an organisation committed to conserving the bio-diversity of the area by reducing threats to the eco systems through increased economic opportunities for local community members.

Ishasha Wilderness Camp – provides an ideal base from which interested visitors can be engaged to have a broader understanding of the local communities of the area and their challenges. In particular, we are focusing on those communities which border the park and fight a continual battle between growing their crops and the game incursions which raid them as an easy source of food. We offer a guided tour of the area which incorporates different areas of interest to visitors including:-

Visit to the elephant trench which is a means to reducing animal crop raiding.
Walk through local settlements / farmland
Explanation of local customs, agricultural practices, and traditions
Visit to the local school
Visit to the Community craft shop

View traditional cultural performances of a combination of carefully selected dance, music, and story-telling, performed in the setting of the villages. Visitors will be encouraged to join in!

A Community liaison Officer has been employed to ensure the needs of the community are carefully heard and evaluated and the interest of tourists catered for correctly. A radio communications network installed helps to ensure communication between the parties, not just to ensure the community is ready to receive visitors, but also to warn of animal incursions and be able to alert the Park Authorities quickly. A percentage of the revenues earned from these community tours is given to the communities for projects that they wish to start or expand. One of the most popular requests to date is for funds to assist with maintaining the elephant trench. This trench is a large trench which has been dug along the park boundary for some 20km and due to it’s particular shape and depth, it helps prevents animals such as elephants, buffalo and hippo from crossing to the crop areas. The problem is that over time parts become filled in, water logged or damaged and so continual repairs are necessary as well as extensions and other measures where the trench is not possible. We are working together with Uganda Conservation Foundation, the mangers of this project, to further this project. More information on UCF and their projects can be found on www.ugandacf.org.