Uganda gets sh8.1b for Mt Rwenzori conservation

A total of €2,109,427million (about Uganda shs8.1b) has been be injected into the Rwenzori Mountains National Park in western Uganda to conserve this threatened national and world treasure.

The money includes €700,000Euro from France, through the French Global Environment Facility) and (€1,359,427 from the EU, together with a €50,000 financial contribution from private partners, funding a conservation project, the "Sustainable Financing of the Rwenzori Mountains National Park Project (SFRMNP)."

The project is jointly implemented by World Wide Fund (WWF) France and WWF Uganda, in the 995 sq km Rwenzori Mountains National Park landscape covering the western districts of Kasese, Ntoroko, Bundibugyo and Kabarole.

French Ambassador to Uganda, Sophie Makame said the project aims to achieve effective conservation of Rwenzori Mountains through identified key approaches, adding that it will be implemented over a three and half year period.

"We hope that through developing a sustainable financing mechanism that realizes the potential value of the natural resources and engages the private sector that currently contributes little or no funding to maintaining the natural resources on which they depend, nature shall be preserved," Sophie Makame said.

Water and environment Minister Prof. Ephraim Kamuntu said the degradation of the Rwenzori Mountains would also spell doom for the entire world.

"The conservation of the Rwenzori is central not only for Uganda's survival but also for the entire world today and in the future because global warming does not respect border," he said.