If the mountain gorillas of Volcanoes National Park form the single best reason to visit Rwanda, then the less-publicised Nyungwe Forest is probably the best reason to prolong your stay. Extending for 1,019 km2 over the mountainous southwest of Rwanda. Nyungwe protects the largest remaining tract of medium-altitude forest anywhere in Africa, forming a contiguous forest block with the 370km2 Kibira National Park in neighbouring Burundi.
Nyungwe is the most important catchment area. in Rwanda, providing water to some 70% a the country, and its central ridges form the watershed between Africa’s two largest drainage Systems, the Nile and the Congo – indeed, a spring on the slopes of the 2,950m Mount Bigugu was recently established as the most remote source of the world’s longest river.
As with other Albertine Rift forests, Nyungwe is a remarkably rich center of biodiversity. More than 1,068 recorded plant species are known to occur in the national park. including about 200 orchids and 250 Albertme Rift Endemics. The vertebrate fauna includes 86 mammal, 322 bird, 32 amphibian and 38 reptile species (of which a full 62 are endemic to the Albertinc Rift) while a total of 120 butterfly species have been recorded. Primates are particularly well represented, with 13 species resident, including a population of about 400 chimpanzees, some of which are semi-habituated to tourist visits.
Statistics aside, Nyungwe is, in a word, magnificent. The forest takes on a liberatingly primal presence even before you enter it. One moment the road is winding through a characteristic rural Rwandan landscape of rolling tea plantations and artificially terraced hills, the next a dense tangle of trees rises imperiously from the longing cultivation. For a full 50km the road clings improbably to steep forested slopes, offering grandstand views over densely swathed hills that tumble like monstrous green waves towards the distant Burundi border.
One normally thinks of rain-forest as the most intimate and confining of environments. Nyungwe is that, hut, as viewed from the main road, it is also gloriously expansive. Vast though it may be, Nyungwe today is but a fragment of what was once. an uninterrupted forest belt covering the length of the Albertine Rift (the stretch of the western Rift Valley running from the Rwenzori Mountains south to Burundi).
The fragmentation of this forest started some 2,000 years ago, at the dawn of the Iron Age, when the first patches were cut down to make way for agriculture – it is thought, for instance, that the isolation of Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park from similar habitats on the Virunga Mountains occurred as recently as 500 years ago. It is over the past 100 years that the forests of the Albertinc Rift have suffered most heavily. See the conservation history.
ACTIVITIES
Discover Nvungsve with these activities!
GUIDED NATURE WALK
Explore the park on any of the trails available from Gisakuraa cr Uwinka. The difficulty ranges from easy to hard. You will be accompanied by experienced guides all along.
GUIDED BIRDING WALK
Explore the particular bird diversity of Nyungwe with one of the guides. They know how to find most of our Albertine Rift Endemic species, as well as many other birds.
CANOPY ADVENTURE
Discover the forest from the very unique vantage point of the canopy. It’s easily accessible from Uwinka and will provide you with a thrilling experience.
WATERFALL TRAILS
Two spectacular waterfalls — Kamiranzovu and Ndambarare – can be visited from Gisakura.
CONGO NILE DIVIDE. TRAIL.
A back-packing, three-day long self reliant trail of more than 32km. departing from approximately 12km east of Uwinka, on the main road. No camping equipment is provided and there are no facilities on the trail.
CHIMPANZEE TREKKING
There are over 400 chimpanzees in Nyungwe and two groups are habituated. Mayebe, with up to 60 individuals, occupy a 61sqkm home range in the main forest block. The second group. Cyamtidongo counts about 20 individuals in Cyamutiongo forest block.
N.B. Chimp tracking is a strenuous activity as the terrain is undulating and off trail. with the chimpanzees foraging up in the trees and occasionally coming to the ground.
OTHER PRIMATES
Several other primate species can he observed in Nyungwe as part or nature walks. Go on specific hike with trackers to find the Angolan Black and White Colobus.
CAMPING
Immerse yourself in the mountain forest atmosphere surrounding the Uwinka Campsite.
COMMUNITY BASE TOURISM
Community hosed experiences are available outside of the park, in the villages of Banda and Gisakuta, Discover traditional handcraft, blacksmith. tea tour and processing. pottery making, traditional dances of traditional brewing techniques.
Conservation and History
Nyungwe was proclaimed a national park in 2004, it is among the youngest national parks in Africa.
Nyungwe forest is part of an ancient ensemble of mountain rain forests located on the Albertine Rift which is considered a Biodiversity Hots,. This region alone comprises half of Africa’s bird species, 40 percent of Africa’s mammals and a fifth of the plant species on the continent. The forests all along the rift, have been under severe pressure over the past 70 years. Agriculture, conflicts, poaching and high population densities have resulted in forest fragmentation. deforestation, and huge conservation challenges. On the eastern side of the rift, where most forests are surviving in National Parks and Forest Reserves, Nyungwe is the largest block of forest surviving.
Conservation efforts in Africa only recently recognized the importance of forest ecosystems. While Rwanda’s first two National Parks were created in 1927 (Volcanoes) and 1934 (Akagera), Nyungwe only achieved full protection status in 2004.
The history of Nyungwe forest is complex. In pre-colonial times, parts of Rwanda’s western mountain range had already been deforested, leading to the separation of Nyungwe and Gishwati-Mukura blocks in the early I800s. Cramudongo was separated from the main Nyungwe forest block somewhere between 1850 and 1900. Still. in the early I900s. Nyungwe was larger than it is today: the earliest accounts describe the forest reaching Lake between Rusizi and Nyamagabe. Over time, the expansion of agriculture slowly pushed back the boundaries of the forest on all of its sides.
Around 1930.80 percent of Rwanda’s natural forest cover that had existed in previous centuries had been deforested. largely due to slash-and- bum agriculture and the demand for wood. Around 1920, Nyungwe’s eastern border had still reached Kigeme, roughly around 10-12 km further than it does today, and the forest covered about 150,.ha. Less than fifteen years later. its coverage had decreased to only 125,000ha. To stop this continual decline. the forests of the Congo-Nile were classified as Forest Reserves in 1933. Cypress trees were planted around the various forest blocks to prevent further agricultural encroachment. At the time, biodiversity was not a concern, but there was interest in protecting the wood reserves for future use.
However, by the time these efforts started, the lower altitudinal parts (around 1,450m and 1,650m) of Nyungwe forest—called Rugege forest back then—had already been cleared. In 1940. the first road across the forest was bail, stretching from Kitabi to Ntendezi (see map). Roughly halfway through, the village of Pindura was born, and from there, a second road, going down the Nyungwe Valley. reached the village of Bweyeye. Gold mining had already started in the valley around 1935.
After Rwanda’s Independence in the 1960s, a renewed period of deforestation occurred with the further removal of between 15,000 and 20,000. ha, particularly on the eastern border and around the Nyirabanda valley. From Pindura. the large-scale gold mining that started in the 1930s, was replaced by artisanal mining and between 3,000 and 6,000 miners lived within the forest. Entire parts of the valley were heavely degraded. Today the phenomenal resilience of the forest has erased most traces of this episode.
However. it was poaching that would have the most devastating impacL Buffaloes, Giant Forest Hogs, and posibly Leopards disappeared during the mining period. Artisanal wood logging also occurred at relatively large scale and numerous Podocarpus trees. particularly the largest, were removed.
1967 saw the birth of the -Forestry Pilot Project’. run by the Swiss Cooperation in partnership with MINAGRI (Ministry of Agriculture). The project was focused primarily on forestry and on the north-west sector where deforestation was most intense. Two bases were built around Rangiro and Gisovu and the Cypress buffer zone was planted then.
Around 1975, the first proposals to make Nyungwe a biosphere reserve failed, as few entities had interests in protecting such a large swath of nature, and the conservation value of rain forests was still not appreciated. At the time it was believed that having 10% percent of the country covered by National Parks was sufficient for conservation. Tourism on the continent WJS focusing mainly savanna ecosystems and the Big 5, and the ecosystem services of mountain rain forests were a vague notion.
Despite the lack of widespread. interest in making Nyungwe a rese several mitigation plans started with the collaboration of various stakeholders. The focus was on how to protect a smaller but significant biodiverse zone. transforming the rest into a managed. forest with a higher percentage of exotic trees. Many at the time failed t understand Nyungwe as a vast ensemble of different ecosystems, complement, and dependent on each other and with enormous biodiversity value.
In 1984, the Wildlife Conservation Society began working in the forest and the Project ‘Conservation de la Foret de Nyungwe (PCFN) was established. The research station of Uwinka was born, and the first research and inventory, on fauna and flora began. A tourism project was recommended in 1988. centred around the exceptional diversity of primates, and the first extensive net-work of trails around Uwinka was created in the following years.
The Genocide against the Tutsi in 1994 profoundly disrupted the life and the history of Rwanda. affecting Nyungwe forest where all projects and initiatives came to a halt. The Nyungwe project (PCFN) slowly came back to life in 1995. Uwinka station and tourist facilities were rebuilt, and small numbers of tourists and researchers started to come back.
In 2004 the Rwanda Government upgraded Nyungwc’s Reserve status to become a full National Park of about 101.000 ha. and tourism development has been the main focus ever since. A Canopy Walks, construction was completed in 2010 and numbers of tourists have slowly grown ever since. Finally, in 2020, African Parks entered into a long-term management agreement with the Rwanda Development Etoard (ROB). Together, they will work closely with local communities. implement an effective law enforcement strategy, and restore and protect wildlife to ensure the long-term ecological, social, and economic sustainability of the park.