Uganda’s Idi Amin era and what it meant for wildlife conservation

Updated 19 October 2026

Idi Amin’s rule from 1971 to 1979, and the years of war and instability that followed until 1986, were a disaster for Uganda’s wildlife. With the economy collapsing and law and order breaking down, soldiers, officials and organised gangs poached on a huge scale for ivory, rhino horn and bushmeat. Elephant numbers fell by around 90%, both black and northern white rhinos were wiped out, and many antelope populations crashed. Tourism, once among the strongest in East Africa, almost disappeared.

Before Amin

In the 1960s, Uganda’s national parks, especially Murchison Falls and Queen Elizabeth, were famous for huge elephant herds, abundant hippos and kob, and a growing tourism industry. Park staff were well trained, and research stations studied elephants and other wildlife. See our guide to the history of Uganda’s national parks.

What went wrong

After the 1971 coup, government spending collapsed, rangers went unpaid and equipment was lost. Ivory became a source of hard currency, and armed poachers, sometimes linked to the army, hunted elephants and rhinos with automatic weapons. The 1979 war that ended Amin’s rule brought troops into the parks, where many animals were shot for food. Instability continued through the early 1980s. By the mid-1980s, Uganda’s elephants had been reduced to a small fraction of their former numbers, and rhinos were gone. See our guide to Uganda’s modern history.

The gorillas

Bwindi and Mgahinga were forest reserves rather than national parks at the time, and hunting, mining and logging affected them, but the gorillas survived largely because the forests were remote and rugged. Their protection improved greatly when both became national parks in 1991 and gorilla tourism began in 1993. See our guide to mountain gorilla numbers.

Recovery

From 1986, stability allowed park management to be rebuilt, and the Uganda Wildlife Authority was created in 1996. Elephants, buffalo, kob and giraffe have recovered substantially, rhinos are breeding again at Ziwa, and tourism is now one of Uganda’s largest earners. The gorilla permit costs US$800, or US$600 in April, May and November. See our guide to animals that came back.

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