Tuesday morning saw us climbing on to a bus for our trip out to Busingiro Centre. That is, all except for a very pregnant Aidan (letting Meg breathe a sigh of relief). Busingiro is part of the Budongo Forest which is an area that JGI-Uganda used to manage. On the other side of Budongo is Kaniyo Pabidi forest where JGI staff have worked to acclimatize
the chimps to humans. As a result of the work of JGI, various areas of the forests became popular with the ecotourists and started to generate money. The National Forest Association then took over the management (and “ownership”) of the forest.
The Forest Education Centre is still funded by JGI to teach local students about the environment.
Vincent introduced us to the centre, after we stopped staring at and taking photos of the incredible forest mural that covered one complete wall! He explained how the Primary 6 students in local schools were selected to partcipate in forest programs dealing with Uganda's place in Africa, the Budongo Forest (where we are right now), the importance of wildlife to all of us and in particular to those Ugandans who live close to it - and gave examples of how he would develop the attitudes of students to consider the forest as their home and to take care of it the same way. Vincent's thoughtful, and skilled answers to our questions was a lesson in itself in weaving related, relevant issues into answers.
Then, Vincent and Amon divided us into 2 groups and gave us guided tours of the area. This was followed by a snack of boiled egs and chapatis packed by the Hotel Arabis then eco-games to show both the negative as well as the potentially positive impacts of humans on our environment.
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