The number of visitors to Akagera National Park has more than doubled in the past few years since African Parks, a non-profit conservation organisation managing 10 national parks and protected areas in seven African countries, took charge, an official says.

African Parks took over in 2010, under a public private partnership with the government which is represented by the Rwanda Development Board (RDB), and immediately upped efforts aimed in conserving and securing the park.

Among others, the park reintroduced seven lions and seen them grow to the current 15 as well as an increase in all wildlife populations.

According to Sarah Hall, the park’s Tourism and Marketing Manager, the park today is "a successful conservation story” and they are working towards continuous improvement.

"We had 15,000 visitors in 2010 and the park earned around 200,000 dollars in park fees. Last year, we reached 32,000 visitors and we earned $1.2 million in terms of revenues or gate takings which is a six-fold increase.

"This is all attributed to increased visitor numbers, increased activities and the Ruzizi Tented Lodge income and the new Karenge bush camp.”

Karenge Bush Camp, opened in 2015 in the north, and the Ruzizi Tented Lodge, a permanent tented lodge southwards on the edge of Lake Ihema.

Despite the progress, however, Hall says they know they have more ground to cover.

"Left to accomplish is the reintroduction of black rhino and the focus on development of the tourism product to further increase revenue and achieve self-sustainability.

"There is also ongoing community engagement so people on the boundary of the park see the benefits of sustainable tourism and conservation.” Domestic visitors up "Akagera being a Rwandan peoples’ park, it is very important for the long term success of Akagera to encourage local visitation,” she said. Community engagement and support is also crucial, she noted, explaining that the park has a budget for the community in its core budget.

In addition to this, they contribute five percent to the national revenue sharing scheme along with an additional five percent to the special guarantee fund which is meant for compensation against human wildlife conflict.

"10 percent of our revenue is given as contribution to potential tourism projects or as compensation, in addition to some core budget funding for specific projects.”

The park is, among others, involved in planting seedlings which it does next to nearby schools so as to involve school children.

"More than 7,000 seedlings were planted in the last few weeks. We also do an environment education programme where we bring nearly 1,300 children to the park every year from schools bordering the park so they can see and understand what we are doing,” she noted.

"We also have income generating initiatives with cooperatives on the park boundary. We support women sewing cooperative so that women can earn income through sewing.”

According to Hall, they are also helping beekeeping cooperatives near the park expand their projects.

Apart from the training workshops now under way, she added, they have given four honey production cooperatives 95 modern bee hives in an attempt to help the latter do away with traditional type hives which kill the bees during the harvesting of honey.

The four cooperatives produced more than two tonnes of honey last year, she said.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw