13 Facts About Nyungwe National Park

13 Facts About Nyungwe National Park

13 Facts About Nyungwe National Park will give you the best of Nyungwe and what you did not know about this magnificent haven in Rwanda. Nyungwe National Park is located in the western Great Rift Valley, also referred to as Albertine Rift flows west valley. The park stretches from Lake Albert to Lake Tanganyika and the Rift has many mountains and Lakes that flow west into the Congo River system. The Albertine rift besides having an amazing landscape is also known to its endemic species of fauna and flora. In the Nyungwe forest, there are about 1,068 plant species, among them over 200 species are trees and 248 species of Orchids, and other new species are being found each year. And also about 85 mammal species are found in Nyungwe, including 13 primates species. Nyungwe accommodates over 300 bird species, 29 species of them are endemics to Albertine rift this makes Nyungwe the best ornithologists’ best site, as many named it a birders paradise. The biodiversity of the Park is even further enriched by other landscapes including swamps, marshes, bamboo thicket, heath, open woodland, and many microhabitats. Nyungwe is known to its 13 primate species including the famous chimpanzees, this is the best site for chimps trekking and there is also the largest troop of the black and white Colobus monkey. After all activities in the Park, there are also fragmented forests includes, including Cyamudongo home of the well-habituated chimpanzees, and also Gisakura has other fragmented forests where the second habituated small troop of the Colobus monkeys lives. Nyungwe Forest has over 130km of constructed trails, which allows all travelers of different fitness levels to enjoy its beauty, by benefiting fresh air.

13 Facts about Nyungwe National Park

• The park is the oldest conserved tropical rainforest in Africa.
• Nyungwe national park is the tropical rainforest that remained green during the ice age
• Nyungwe national park accommodates about 13 primate species with a world’s largest population of 400 monkeys and chimpanzees that are 25% of Africa’s population.
• Nyungwe national park supply 70% of the water that is used in Rwanda
• Nyungwe national park is home of the biggest protected marshland in Rwanda which is Kamiranzovu Swamp
• Nyungwe national park extends to the border of Burundi where it changes the name to Kibira national park (trans-frontier Park).
• The park was a forest reserve since 1933 but was officially established in 2006 by the Rwandan government.
• Nyungwe national park has a canopy walkway of 1km long and 70 m height from the ground which makes it the first and longest walkway in East-Africa and the third in Africa after lekki conservation center’s walkway in Nigeria and the Kakum’s walkway in Ghana.
• Nyungwe national park is considered as the furthest source of the Nile river
• 10% of income from the nyungwe national park goes to local people around the park
• Nyungwe national park touches to five districts out of thirty districts that form Rwanda
• It accommodates a large variety of rare plants
• The park is home to about 29 Albertine endemic bird species such are; Rwenzori Turaco, Albertine owlet, Archer’s robin-chat, Blue-headed Sunbird, Buff-throated Apalis, Dusky Crimsonwing, Dwarf honeyguide, Grauer’s swamp warbler, Handsome francolin, Kivu ground thrush, Mountain masked Apalis, Neumann’s warbler, Purple-breasted sunbird, Red-collared babbler, Red-faced woodland warbler, Red-throated Alethe, Regal Sunbird, Rockefeller’s sunbird, Ruwenzori Apalis, Ruwenzori batis, Ruwenzori nightjar, Shelley’s Crimsonwing, Strange Weaver, Stripe-breasted tit, Yellow-eyed black flycatcher, and more others.

The survey conducted states that the number of endemic species found in the Nyungwe forest is many compared to other forests in the Albertine Rift Mountains.