Around Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, conservation education aims to give children who grow up beside the forest a reason to protect it. Schools near the park run wildlife clubs, take part in Uganda Wildlife Authority outreach, and many have classrooms, desks or water tanks paid for by tourism revenue sharing. For visitors, the most useful thing to understand is how this money and teaching reach communities, and how to support them without doing harm.

Why education matters at Bwindi

When Bwindi became a national park in 1991, families lost access to the forest for farming, hunting, timber and honey, and many saw the park as something imposed on them. Children in these parishes grow up close to gorillas, but often more aware of crop raids by baboons and bushpigs than of the forest’s value. Conservation education tries to change that by linking the park to things children can see: jobs, schools, clean water and visitors.

How it works in practice

Uganda Wildlife Authority’s community conservation rangers visit schools around the park, give talks, run film shows and support wildlife clubs, where pupils learn about gorillas, forest plants and birds, and sometimes visit the park. Some lodges and local organisations sponsor school trips, tree planting and environmental competitions. Conservation Through Public Health, founded by Ugandan vet Dr Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, links gorilla health with human health in villages, including hygiene and disease education.

Revenue sharing pays for much of the visible change. By law, 20 percent of park entry fees goes to communities around the park, and each gorilla permit includes a US$10 community levy. Parish committees decide on projects, which often include school buildings and water supplies. Our guide to how gorilla tourism revenue reaches communities explains the system and its weaknesses.

What it has and has not achieved

Attitudes towards the park are more positive today than in the 1990s, and many guides, porters and rangers grew up in the surrounding villages. But education alone does not stop poaching or crop raiding when families are poor, and revenue sharing has faced complaints about slow payments and projects that do not reach the poorest households. The Batwa, who lived in the forest before 1991, have benefited least.

How visitors can help

Hire a porter on your trek, buy crafts directly from community groups, and choose lodges that employ local staff. If you want to visit a school, go with a recognised community organisation or your lodge and ask what the school actually needs, rather than handing out sweets, pens or money to children, which encourages begging. The gorilla permit costs US$800, or US$600 in April, May and November. Read about volunteering in gorilla conservation, the Batwa trail and Buhoma village.

Frequently asked questions

Community Schools and Conservation Education

The conservation education programme operating in schools adjacent to Bwindi Impenetrable National Park reaches approximately 15,000 students per year through curriculum-integrated materials developed by UWA’s education team in partnership with the district education offices. The programme’s core message — that the gorilla population’s health is directly linked to the community’s economic wellbeing through the revenue sharing mechanism — is framed for different age groups through different narrative approaches: ecological interdependence for secondary students, economic mathematics for upper primary, and story-based materials featuring specific gorilla family members for lower primary. Research on the programme’s effectiveness shows measurable changes in students’ attitudes toward the park and its wildlife compared to control groups in schools outside the programme’s coverage area — evidence that conservation education investment produces returns in community tolerance that are difficult to generate through adult engagement alone.

The conservation education programme’s most lasting impact is on the students who become adults in the communities adjacent to the park rather than on the international visitors who encounter it briefly. A primary school student in a Bwindi boundary community who goes through the programme in grades 3 through 7 and emerges with an understanding of the gorilla-community economic relationship is a different kind of community member than a student who received no conservation education — more likely to report snare sightings to rangers, less likely to participate in illegal entry for firewood collection, and more likely to value the park’s conservation as a benefit to their own household economy. These behavioural outcomes are what the programme’s long-term effectiveness is ultimately assessed on.