Mount Elgon National Park

Mount Elgon National Park is a hidden gem, located 140 kilometres northeast of Lake Victoria. The park is split down the middle by the Kenyan-Ugandan border, with the Ugandan part covering an area of 1,110 km2 and the Kenyan part covering 169 km2. The park is named after Mount Elgon, an extinct shield volcano on the border of Uganda and Kenya.The park boasts a moist to moderate dry climate, with annual rainfall exceeding 1,270 millimetres. The dry seasons run from June to August and from December to March, although it can rain at any time. The vegetation in the park is a rich variety ranging from montane forest to high open moorland, studded with giant lobelia, groundsel and heather plants. The mountain slopes are covered with Elgon olive and Pouteria adolfi-friedericii wet montane forest, and at higher elevations, this changes to olive and Afrocarpus gracilior forest, and then an Afrocarpus and bamboo Yushania alpina zone. Higher still is a Hagenia abyssinica zone and then moorland with heaths Erica arborea and Erica trimera, tussock grasses such as Agrostis gracilifolia and Festuca pilgeri, herbs such as Alchemilla, Helichrysum, Lobelia, and the giant groundsels Senecio barbatipes and Senecio elgonensis.Mount Elgon National Park is also home to a diverse range of wildlife, including elephants, buffalo, small antelope and duiker, forest monkeys such as the black-and-white colobus and blue monkey, as well as red-tailed monkey, which were thought to be locally extinct. Both leopard and hyena also exist there.The park is also a bird watcher’s paradise with at least 144 bird species, including Jackson’s spurfowl, the eastern bronze-naped pigeon, Hartlaub’s turaco, the Tacazze sunbird and the endangered lammergeier, due to their restricted range. Half of Uganda’s butterfly species have also been reported in the park.The park has a rich history, with the land around Mount Elgon being managed based on indigenous power structures and rules before colonial administration.The Ugandan government gazetted its side of Mount Elgon a Forest Reserve in 1929, and in 1992, the Ugandan part of the park was officially declared a national park. Conservation management of the park aims to balance human needs with the protection of the park’s natural resources.