Uganda Introduces Virtual Gorilla Tracking for this year of Gorillas

Gorilla tracking is no. 1 tourist attraction in Uganda. Uganda Wildlife Authority the custodian of Uganda national parks is setting a new way and easy way of tracking gorillas in the wild by exploiting new technology. And come September 26, 2009, the virtual network to track the gorillas will be launched in Kampala and will be witnessed by world leaders and local and international superstars.

This was revealed by Ms. Eunice Mahoro, the Director of Tourism Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) in an interview with East African Business Week.

Mahoro explained virtual gorilla tracking will involve stationing of cameras within Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park and trackers will only be able to track gorillas with the help of Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates.

“All this will be possible by one logging on website which will work in the same way as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Once you befriend a gorilla or gorillas, you will be interacting with your gorilla friend on a weekly basis and you will get updates on the movement of your gorilla friend(s) in Bwindi. And all you do is paying just one dollar or an equivalent in Uganda shillings to any of the mobile telephone networks and you will get yourself a gorilla friend,” Mahoro said.

She said once one ‘buys’ or rather befriends a gorilla; one becomes able to follow births, new relationships and genealogy of your friend, all life long.  Also this will increase uganda tours as many people will gorilla tracking  easy.

“But you do not have to be on the social network site, you can track your gorilla friend on www.friendagorilla.org site by going to the web page Geotrack,” Mahoro said.

She explained that come September 24, the Nshongi gorilla family in Kisoro will be officially launched by tracking this biggest family of gorillas with 34 individual members which has been habituated for tracking recently.

“This is the year of the gorilla and we want to get everyone on board. We shall have many campaigns starting August 31 with gorilla road shows; culminating in a fundraising corporate gala at Kampala Serena Hotel. With the website connection and the gala, we hope to raise about US$2 billion (US$1 million),” Mahoro said. She explained that tourism last year contributed $600m and the biggest chunk came from gorilla  safaris tracking and currently, the tourism sector contributes 4% of the country’s GDP.

 Lilian Nsubuga, the Communication and Public Relations Manager UWA, said the money raised will mostly be used for constructing fully operational clinics around the national park and one project that will be initiated by the community.

This type of system will increase gorilla awareness and increase gorilla safaris in Uganda.