The Volunteers and myself are involved in a Reptile Monitoring Project and we are particularly interested in Adders. We monitor individual Adders by catching them, weighing, measuring and before releasing them again we take a close up photo of the scales on the back of the head, which is believe to be unique to each Adder.

This means we can track individual over time and distance and we follow their travels around the forest very closely.

The first Adder caught today was also the first Adder we caught last year, a black male weighing in at approx 90 grams and about 60cm in length.

As the day got warmer we saw another smaller male which managed to evade our desperate attempts to catch it and then just before we decided to call it a day we caught another male sitting close to one of our ‘reptile tins’ .

These 3 snakes plus the two Red Admirals and a Peacock Butterfly are surely the herald of better times to come.

 Our welcome from the children today – some happy and cheeky faces. . .

 This is a picture of the Primary 5 class.  Here we are giving the answers that chidlren Herne Junior School sent – to the questions that this class asked.  The teacher wrote the answers on the blackboard.

 This is the link teacher, who teaches the Primary 7 class.  His name is James Kihika.  The class are playing a new game (Snapshot Safari) that they have been given – which is about the National Park and how it can fit in with the local communities. 

And this last photo is a picture of the playground at the school.  This was a PE lesson that we interrupted as we arrived for our visit.

We had a wonderful welcome from Bukorwe Primary School. Bukorwe Primary is twinned with Clanfield Junior School.  The Headteacher, Vian Nsengiyuma and Vicent Ndagijimaana, the teacher in charge of the Twinning Project introduced us to all the children and the staff.

They all loved having their photograph taken! We gave class P7 your prospectus which they enjoyed looking through. Many of the children walk a long way to attend school; some staff live an hour’s walk away.

The houses are a simple mud and wattle finish, with no running water or electricity. The school lies on the edge of the Queen Elizabeth National Park, near Ishasha, home to the tree-climbing lions. Nearby there is an elephant trench, to stop the elephants coming in to the village! We had great fun showing the children photos of your school. There was much laughter and amazement when they saw your indoor loos and your school kitchen.

This is Vicent, the Twinning Link teacher.

This message is to update you all on progress to Twinning Project work during Johan and Peter’s stay in Uganda.

We are pleased to report that the proposed environmental training for primary school teachers is now due to happen on the 5^th to 9^th March, based at the QE Park.  This is a course run by a college in Kampala and that is based on a PACE (Pan African Conservation Education) programme set up in collaboration with charities in the UK.  It will cover a wide range of conservation and ‘sustainable use’ topics including: nature and people; provision of clean water and eco-sanitation; fuel-efficient cooking; sustainable agriculture.  Teachers from 15 of the local schools have been invited plus 10 of the community rangers from the Park who work with them.  Hopefully it will be informative and fun – and will help the teachers give informed messages to their children – and hopefully they and the rangers can help develop new conservation-related projects with the wider communities!

We were able to visit Bukorwe School at the south end of the Park last week – and, in passing, managed to get fantastic views of tree-climbing lions in the adjacent Ishasha part of the Park!  Yet again the teachers and children were extraordinarily welcoming.  They lined up in the playground to greet us, despite the onset of a thunderstorm, and most continued to smile even through formal speeches from us (which were no doubt extremely boring!).  We now have letters of support from the head teachers of the three schools who hope to take part in the teacher exchange later this year and have forwarded these to the British Council as part of the bid for funds that Peter and Steve are pursuing.

Other news –

• The national Uganda Wildlife Training Institute is based within QE Park at Katwe and is very keen to join the Twinning Project and find a suitable twinning college in the UK.  We gather that very many of the Uganda Wildlife Authority rangers pass through this college so it would be great to foster this link.
• We have met with the film-maker who produced the film of Katunguru Primary School and we are planning to work with him to complete a film at Kafuro school and then do one at Bukorwe.  Incidentally the Ugandan children and teachers would love to see films of life at the UK schools – so please encourage any budding film producers to get filming!
• We have just spent a couple of days on the biennial hippo count!  This year UWA are offering tourists the chance to help with the count – as suggested by the twinning project and are finding that people are interested in this sort of ‘experiential’ tourist outing.

• There are significant local problems with invasive plant species in the Park and we have looked at the issues of Prickly Pear and ‘Lantana’ control – all the work is currently done by hand, which may well be preferable to (and cheaper than) using chemicals.
• And we took a long weekend off to visit the Mountain Gorillas at Bwindi Impenetrable Forest – a truly memorable experience. . .

It was great to chat to some of the students (and lecturers) about the Twinning  Project and volunteering opportunities at Queen Elizabeth Country Park.

There were a few who were really interested in the work of the Twinning Project and perhaps in going out to Uganda, so if you are one of those students reading this blog, please keep in touch with the Project and come along and have a chat sometime. Out team will be pleased to explain the sort of work you would be asked to undertake and how volunteering in for the Project in Uganda works.

If you want to get involved, but don’t fancy going to Uganda you can always get involved locally.

This is the second report from Johan and Peter’s three month visit to Queen Elizabeth National Park with the Twinning Project.  The Ugandan school term started last week and we have now made our first visits to four of the twinned schools.  We have also had really constructive discussions with the National Park rangers and other staff about ways in which their work could be improved.

Our eyes have been opened to the amazing challenges faced by the primary schools here.  As Steve, Mark and the others who have been here will know, even getting to the schools is quite an expedition!  At the moment we have a two-wheel-drive car and have been learning rally driving skills to negotiate the rough and rutted dirt roads.  Three of the schools we’ve been to are about 30-40 minutes’ drive off tarmac roads – and whilst we can at least drive (with air-con) many of the children have to walk 5 or 6 km to get to and from school each day.  Some have the added problem of having to avoid elephant, buffalo and lion on their way to school!

The schools we have been to are Nyakatonzi, Katunguru, Kafuro and Hamukungu – with plans to get to Bukorwe at the south of the Park next week (there are many others in and just next to the Park – but we all want to make sure we can work links with the first three or four before seeking more!).  We’ve had fantastic, cheerful welcomes from the teachers and children – eg Nyakatonzi in pink and Kafuro in orange uniforms.  The schools have very basic brick-built classrooms with blackboards and chalk and really limited materials.  They have no electricity or running water and poor sanitation.  There are reasonable numbers of teachers who seem well trained and enthusiastic even though they have to live in rented rooms in the local villages (often in mud-huts) and only earn something like £70 a month.  We are returning to the schools next week to join individual classes and to try to get email or other communication links going with their UK twins.

The Uganda Wildlife Authority staff have given us many tips on what we might do to help their work.  For example they would like us to try and organise some experts to give them training on species groups like butterflies, bats and birds (say on bird ecology and behaviour).  They want ideas and advice on improving their tourism facilities including signage and advertising.  They would like us to see if we can encourage volunteers to come for a month or so to help track chimps at Kyambura Gorge – so that they know where to take tourist parties to avoid disappointment and ensure their trips get good PR and are well supported.  At the moment we are investigating the conversion of a disused building at the Mweya centre – in the hope that it can become a centre selling crafts and demonstrating the history and current life of the local communities.

And finally we are enjoying ourselves hugely!  We cannot recommend Uganda highly enough – it fully deserves it’s Lonely Planet accolade as No1 tourist destination 2012.  The people are truly welcoming and the country has amazing wildlife, sights and contrasts.  Of course not everything is rosy – there are serious challenges of disease, the roads are in a poor state, the traffic in Kampala is, shall we say, exciting and the population is economically poor by our standards – but they still manage to smile and laugh a lot more than we do!  Lots to see at Mweya and from Hippo House – regular wart-hog, waterbuck and elephant and one buffalo last week as well as many, many birds.  Do come. . .

The Team at QENP

For those that haven’t met us, Johan has just taken early retirement from teaching and Peter from his nature conservation/managerial job with Natural England.  Prior to our trip we had great introductions to the objectives of the project from Charles and from Steve and others of the team at Petersfield.  Thanks to all and to the teachers at Hart Plain, Liss and Clanfield Junior schools that we also visited.

We have had a fantastic welcome in Uganda – and introduction from Nelson Guma at QU National Park and from the heads of the departments we will be working with – Benon, Agnes and Margaret.  And Moses, who came to QE Country Park, has spent most of the first week showing us the key sites, animals and other features of the Park (many thanks for such a great introduction, Moses).  Many here send their very best wishes back to you all (Steve, Mark, etc) and they clearly have very good memories of your trips across.

Playing the Safari Game

One of the items on our itinerary and activity plan invited us to attend a Community Conservation Meeting at the Wildlife Centre, Mweya (18.1.12).  The main discussion centred on the ‘Uganda Snapshot Safari Board Game’ and how best it can be used to increase knowledge and understanding of wildlife in QE by the community primary and secondary schools.  A presentation was made by the Kaddu Sebunya, Chief of Party, US Aid.  He was very enthusiastic and the photos below show how much fun everyone had in playing it. We think it can work well alongside the twinning work with the schools.

The plans for next week include meetings with Benon, Agnes and Margaret to sketch out the detail of our work.  With Benon we will be covering the various aspects of Community work – schools; women’s groups; teacher training on environment issues; etc – whilst we will be covering tourism with Agnes and the conservation and monitoring work with Margaret. 

Will report again on progress – and bore you with photos of all the wildlife passing through the garden at Hippo House!!

Thanks for reading – and do let us have any comments. .

They will be working with the Warden-in-Charge of the Community Team, Benon Mugyerwa, who says that he is looking forward to meeting them and introducing them to everyone.

Peter and Johan have already visited some of the English twinned schools and can’t wait to meet each of the Ugandan twinned schools and spend time talking to the teachers and pupils about ways of improving communications and building stronger partnerships.They will be running a blog so that we can all keep up to date with the adventures and find out more about what it is like to Volunteer at this fantastic Park.

We will be giving out more details over the next few days and will also keep people in touch with their progress via our this blog as well

The New Year has got off to a bad start when Park Ranger Margaret Anderson (34) was shot and killed while attempting to stop a fleeing suspect in Mount Rainier National Park, Washington; USA on 1st January.

After being shot, Ranger Anderson radioed for help as the suspect fled on foot. The suspect’s body was found the following day about six miles from the initial shooting scene. He was identified as Benjamin Barnes, an Iraq war veteran. Ranger Anderson had served with the National Park Service for four years. She is survived by her husband and two young children. Her husband also serves as a park ranger in the park and was on duty at the time

We should never forget that Rangers around the world are often required to put their lives on the line to protect the Park, Reserve and wildlife they are responsible for.

They are truly the The Green Line _________________

Your fellow Rangers and Volunteers at the Twinning Project send our heartfelt condolences to Ranger Anderson’s Family and Colleagues

This music video is being used by Uganda Wildlife  Authority as a promotional video and a large part of the filming was done at Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda.

Aziz was born in Fort Portal which lies just to the north of the Queen Elizabeth National Park and although starting out as a backing musician, has now forged a career on his own. In this video he is joined by the  Mwamba  children’s Choir and the combination of both modern and traditional sounding African melodies together with some stunning photograhpy will have you enviously  thinking about travelling to Africa to see these sites and hear these sounds for yourself.

If you are so inspired to do so then please contact the Twinning Project, for we will be happy to advise you and point you in the direction of some great places to visit and also show you how you can make your visit ethical and supportive of the local communities.

Enjoy the video