BatwaTrail initiative
The Batwa people are believed to be the first indigenous inhabitants of Central Africa (areas straddling Uganda, Rwanda and eastern Congo). The bamboo and tropical rainforests are their natural habitat as hunter-gatherers.
Since the gazette of these forests as national parks in the 1990’s and the stringent environmental laws introduced due to international interest in the dwindling Gorilla population and the income Tourism generates; the Batwa people have been displaced, squatting on other people’s land.
The Batwa people are said to have lived in the forest for about a million years ago but today these pygmies are being treated with less or no attention at all.
Why doesn’t the ministry of Tourism for instance, consider the Batwa people as a tourist attraction and make the tourists pay two times Gorilla fees just to track the pygmies? Because these are forest people and they are not like us so let’s not make them look like us at all in the name of modernizing them. Actually we should accept them as “wild people “and for sure these our brothers have no problem with it.
Let these forest people be gazetted some where in the forest and let them live again. Perhaps we would even be proud of having the remains of this rare species of early men. If Bwindi Impenetrable forest is conserved for Gorillas and people pay $500 to track a gorilla, yet the Batwa claim their origin from this forest, part of the Impenetrable forest should be left for Batwa people to co-live with Gorillas and other animals as before.
By Judith

ly taking refuge in the trading centre 10 km from their homes. The elephants have escaped from the park as a result of the rampant wildfires now a common happening in the park. The prolonged dry season has dried out the shrubs in the park forcing animals to invade people’s gardens, which puts peoples’ lives at risk. Uganda wildlife authority will work on driving the animals back into the park boundaries.
sistance of the Police Dog Unit a day after a black back was discovered dead in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest with a spear protruding from its neck.