News

New film on Mount Elgon National Park in Uganda

09.01.2015

Australian Stuart Cohen has put in a huge amount of volunteer work and expense travelling to Uganda and making a very fine film, which was launched at the World Park Congress mountain dinner. The documentary highlights some of the work being done in Uganda by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and local people of Mount Elgon. It has some wonderful scenes and is very inspirational on how hard people will work for conservation in often very difficult circumstances. It also captures the inspirational 'love' of the natural world that motivates so many.

Stuart is eager to have it viewed, and is trying to recover some of the expense he incurred. If anyone has ideas about any funding possibilities, please contact him.

Mount Elgon National Park (and Biosphere Reserve) was declared in 1993 and is a Transboundary Park with Kenya. Its highest peak, Wagagai is 4 321 m (14 173 ft), the fourth highest in East Africa. Its most amazing feature is its huge caldera of some 40 sq km (15.44 sq miles). It has four altitudinal vegetation zones, including substantial cloud forest and has 273 tree and shrub species. Problems include agricultural encroachment from lowlands and poaching for bushmeat. The IUCN project there is of long standing.

Watch the film on youtube 

Check out the Flickr gallery

By Larry Hamilton of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas

Photo: Stuart Cohen