Caught between the allure of Murchison Falls and poverty

As Murchison Falls Park rebounds from decades of decline, wildlife continues to face threat of frontline communities driven to poaching by poverty

NEWS ANALYSIS | RONALD MUSOKE | In the heart of Uganda’s largest national park, Assistant Warden Gerald Abitegeka leads a relentless fight against poaching, a battle that reveals the uneasy balance between conservation, poverty, and the nation’s tourism dreams.

The late September 19 afternoon light flickers through a room stacked with hundreds of deadly rudimentary poaching weapons. Spears glint from one corner while the serrated teeth of handsaws lay next to pieces of tropical forest sawn timber and rusted wire coils.  The air smells faintly of dust. This is the Joint Operation Command Centre Arms and Exhibit Store at Mubako in Murchison Falls National Park; part evidence room, part graveyard for the tools that have hunted Uganda’s rare wildlife for years.

Abitegeka, in the dark green fatigues of the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), moves closer to the dusty confiscated hunting gear. He gestures toward a collection of wire snares; hundreds of them, coiled like sleeping serpents.

“What you see here are called poaching gears ranging from wire snares, spears, wheel traps, and even hand saws. The motorbikes you also see here are confiscated, having been used to carry wildlife products; it could either be ivory,  meat, fish or even timber,” he told The Independent  on Sept. 19 during our recent visit to the park. “They are the tools our neighbours use to kill animals.”

Outside, the savannah hums, an endless expanse of grass and thickets of thorny acacia trees stretching toward the distant River Nile. Inside, the exhibit store tells another story; a tale of struggle, ingenuity, and survival.

The park and its poor neighbours

Murchison Falls National Park, at 3840 sq km (384,000 hectares), is Uganda’s largest and oldest protected area. It was established in 1952, a jewel of the postcolonial era, where elephants once roamed in herds of thousands and lions prowled the floodplains.

During the 1960s, the park was among the most popular wildlife destinations in all of Africa, drawing filmmakers, explorers, and early tourists to the place where the Nile narrows into a thunderous cataract-the fabled Murchison Falls.

Then came Uganda’s turbulent decades of war and political collapse. Between the 1970s and 1980s, armies and militias roamed these plains, guns outnumbering elephants. By 1995, only two hundred elephants survived — a mere 1.3% of their pre-war population.

Today, after decades of recovery, the herds have returned: thousands of elephants, buffaloes, hippos, and Uganda Kobs graze the grasslands once more.  The majestic Giraffes, in their thousands, stride across the horizon. Conservationists say three-quarters of all Rothschild’s giraffes left in the world live here.

But beneath the recent conservation success lies a quieter crisis.  “The people who live around this mighy Conversation Area are poor…And they now see the park as their only source of survival,” Abitegeka says.

On the rough concrete floor of the store lie the instruments of that survival: wheel traps forged from discarded car rims, spears tipped with handmade iron blades, and snares twisted from motorbike brake cables and building wire.

Close to half a dozen spears lean against the wall near the store’s entrance. There is one particular one with a wooden shaft capped with a brownish float.  “This one here,” Abitegeka says, holding it up, “is used for (killing) hippos. The poacher throws it while the animal is still in the water. The float helps them track it as it dies.”

“People by the water, from Pakwach and Buliisa, have their own way of killing the animals.  Those in the north of the park, the Acholi and Lango, also have other methods for killing buffaloes and antelopes. Each culture has its own ways of poaching,” he says.

The tools, he explains, are improvised but deadly- a technology of necessity. For instance, wire snares are made from construction cable and so are iron bars meant for buildings. Abitegeka says there is no law against producing such materials because they are idealy meant for a different purpose.  “You can’t stop factories from making barbed wire or iron bars,” he says with frustrated resignation. “But the same wires that are used in construction are also used to kill elephants.”

Each confiscated piece tells a story: a poacher’s intent, a ranger’s pursuit, and an animal’s final struggle. Abitegeka walks to a pile of rusted metal. “All of these came from the park,” he says. “We find them hidden deep inside- traps set under the grass, waiting.”

The human toll

Murchison Falls National Park is an expansive swathe of challenging terrain but its protection rests in the hands of only 500 rangers. The park, Abitegeka reckons, needs at least 1,500 rangers to be patrolled effectively. “We face gunfire,” he says.  “Sometimes poachers have guns, and they shoot. We lose rangers every year. Two have died here since January, this year.”

The work is grueling. Rangers patrol for up to a week at a time, sleeping under the open sky, trekking more than hundreds of kilometres through bush and floodplain. Some die in ambushes; others are killed by the very animals they protect.  “Those ones,” Abitegeka says of the latter, “we call them normal. It’s part of the work.”

For Abitegeka, the scars of this war are both physical and emotional. He has served in Uganda’s conservation frontlines for twenty-five years, from Queen Elizabeth National Park in the Southwest of the country to Kidepo Valley Conservation Area in the Northeast to Murchison Falls in the Northwest.

“I started as a recruit ranger in 2001,” he recalls. “I joined because I was jealous; jealous of the park being destroyed by my own people. I wanted to protect it.” He has faced armed poachers, rebel groups from Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army to the South Sudanese warriors crossing into Kidepo. “I have lost rangers to gunfire,” he says quietly. When asked what keeps him going, his answer is simple: “I swore to protect wildlife, and that is what keeps me going. I love it so  much.”

Poverty and the poaching economy

Ironically, around Murchison Falls National Park, poverty remains widespread. Hundreds of thousands of people live within kilometres of this park. Most rely on subsistence farming, fishing, and firewood. When crops fail or markets collapse, the park becomes the fallback economy. In fact, despite their rich biodiversity and varied landscapes,  this is the current state around the country’s national parks -from Murchison Falls and Kidepo Valley in the north, Mount Elgon and Pian Upe in the east, Queen Elizabeth, Bwindi Impenetrable, Mgahinga, and Rwenzori Mountains in the west, to Lake Mburo in the South-central region.

“People are poor,” says Abitegeka, specifically referring to the frontline communities surrounding Murchison Falls National Park.  “They see the animals as wealth walking past them. Some poach for meat, others for money.  And some because their grandparents hunted, and they believe it is their right.” However, for many, poaching is a rational choice. A snare costs little or almost nothing to make and can bring meat worth several weeks of wages. An elephant tusk or a few hippo teeth, trafficked into the black markets abroad, can possibly help them survive for a few months.

But, for Abitegeka, every snare found in this park is a wound. He also knows the unintended victims; the lions, leopards, hyenas which are sometimes caught in traps meant for antelope, warthogs and buffaloes. “They don’t intend to kill them,” he says, referring to the cats.  “But once the snare is laid, it doesn’t choose.” UWA estimates that seven tonnes of snares have been removed from the park in the past three years. As such, snaring remains the single biggest threat to wildlife here.

The 5 most poached game

When asked which animals are most targeted, Abitegeka doesn’t hesitate. “For meat: hippos, buffaloes, Uganda Kobs, warthogs, and Jackson’s hartebeests. For wildlife products: elephants for ivory, pangolins for scales, hippos for tusks, sometimes leopards for their skins.”

Each represents a different economy of need. Meat feeds families; ivory funds smugglers; pangolin scales move quietly across borders to distant markets. He pauses for a moment, as if calculating the invisible cost of each carcass. “Every animal killed,” he says, “is a future gone.”

Still, despite the daily risks, there have been victories. Elephant numbers have rebounded, with Uganda Kobs, giraffes and other animals roaming freely  and snare confiscations have dropped. Latest data from UWA indicates that Uganda Kobs, which were 70,000 in 1960 before reducing to 30,000 in 1995, have increased to more than 175,590. Giraffes, once 2,500 in 1960 but declining to 250 by 1995, now stand at more than 2000. Elephants, which once stood at 30,000 in 1960 before plummeting to 1,900 in 1995, have now recovered to 7,975 by 2020. Southern White Rhinos, previously extinct in Uganda, have risen from 8 in 2006 to 42 by July 2023. Buffalo numbers, which dropped from 60,000 in 1960 to 18,000 in 1995, have surged to over 44,160 as Mountain gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park have grown from 400 in 2015 to over 500. These are estimated counts for the wildlife populations across the country’s conservation areas.

But  the balance remains precarious. Murchison Falls National Park  that holds Uganda’s richest biodiversity also sits atop its most valuable oil reserves;  over 40% of the petroleum reserves lie beneath this conseration area.  Oil exploration roads and drilling rigs now slice through grasslands once reserved for elephants. This has made conservationists worry that the twin pressures of oil and poverty could undo decades of recovery of this park.

Paradoxically, the government has recently pinned its economic hopes on tourism, setting an ambitious target for the sector to fetch  at least US$50 billion by 2040. Murchison Falls, the country’s most visited park, is central to that vision. More than 50,000 tourists visit Murchison Falls National Park each year, bringing in over US$2 million in revenue. But only a tiny percentage of the revenues  trickles down to the frontline communities who live alongside the park’s electrified boundaries.

Communities on the frontline

The Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) is required by law to channel 20% of park revenues to local governments for community projects; schools, clinics and boreholes. On August 8, last year, the UWA disbursed Shs 3.15 billion in revenue-sharing funds to the six district local governments  that neighbour Murchison Falls National Park.

Buliisa received Shs 810 million, Kiryandongo Shs 747 million, Nwoya Shs 716 million, Pakwach Shs 360 million, Masindi Shs 298 million, and Oyam Shs 221 million. The disbursement event, held at Nwoya District headquarters and presided over by Minister of Tourism, Wildlife, and Antiquities, Tom Butime, was hailed as a step toward equitable benefit-sharing with communities living alongside Uganda’s most famous protected area.

However, critics of this initiative note that although UWA channels support to local governments rather than directly to communities, this often leaves many locals feeling frustrated, as the allocated funds rarely trickle to those in need.

The reformed and the rest

Nevertheless, not everyone from the so-called frontline communities has given up on co-existence. UWA’s conservation education programmes and partnerships with organizations like the Uganda Conservation Foundation (UCF), the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has seen a  section of former poachers  converted into wildlife protectors. In one village near the park’s southern boundary, a group of men call themselves “The Reformed Poachers.” Once hunters, they now act as community scouts, alerting rangers when poachers enter the park.  “They give us information,” says Abitegeka. “They say, ‘We are with you now.’ Maybe 10 percent of people have reached that understanding. The other 90 still see the park as their survival.”

For Abitegeka, that 10 percent is a start — proof that education and empathy can shift attitudes. “We need to engage the communities,” he insists. “We need to teach them the value of conservation. When they understand that wildlife brings them schools, water, and roads, then they will protect it too.”

The cost of protection

Standing among the confiscated gear, Abitegeka’s voice hardens. “Look at all this,” he says, sweeping a hand over the heaps of twisted metal that in one section of the room almost hugs the roof. He says about 20 tonnes of exhibits have been collected over the last ten years. Three tonnes of them have been buried under a new building at this outpost, as its foundation. “We had to hide them, otherwise, people would steal them back and reuse them.”

The logic is grim but practical. In a place where every scrap of wire or metal has value, even the tools of death can’t be left unattended. He dreams of better tools for his rangers instead; drones, helicopters, and high-tech sensors like those used in Kenya and South Africa.  “We need technology to detect danger, to see when an elephant is in trouble twenty kilometres away,” he says. “We need transport, training, and enough people.” But more than anything, he says: “The government must improve the lives of the communities. If people live well, they will not poach.”

A life in the wild

And as the afternoon heat subsides and our encounter with Abitegeka ends, we step outside, joining hundreds of participants who have convened in this park for this year’s edition of the Wildlife Ranger Challenge (which took place on Sept.20). From here, the land rolls toward the horizon; a tapestry of savannah, river, and forest. Somewhere out there, rangers are still on patrol, their radios crackling faintly through the static of cicadas and other nocturnal creatures that are readying themselves for night life. For Abitegeka, this is not just a job; it is a lifetime vow.

“When I joined, I swore to protect wildlife,” he says. “That promise has kept me for twenty-five years. I have seen people die; I have seen animals die. But still, I move on because this is home.” He gazes toward the Nile where the water plunges through the narrow gorge that gives the park its name. “We protect for the next generation,” he says, in reference to the national agency’s mission slogan.  “If we fail, they will find nothing.”

Behind him, as Abitegeka’s law enforcement colleague locks the door of the store, the confiscated weapons remain stacked in silence, reminders of the fragile peace between man and nature. Each twisted snare tells the rather nuanced story; that conservation is not just about saving animals, but about saving people too.

As the light fades over Murchison Falls, the warden’s words linger like an echo of the river’s roar — a vow, a warning, and a hope.  “We fight poaching to protect the wildlife for the next generation. We want the next generation to find wildlife thriving,” he says. “We also have to protect jealously the wildlife for the revenue collection that the government gets from tourists. If animals are killed, that means tourists are not going to come here. But also we need to protect wildlife for research and education purposes. We expect children that are still in school to understand the value of conservation,” he says.