Akagera prepares for the arrival of lions

March next year, Akagera national park will welcome a number of Lions and so the local and foreign tourists visiting this National Park will be able to catch a glimpse of these lions, so said officials at the Rwanda Development Board (RDB). Meanwhile the members of the public accounts committee (PAC) expressed concerns about the delay in importing lions yet RDB had said the plan was in its final stages a number of years back.

Amb. Yamina Karitanyi who is Rwanda Development Board’s Head of Tourism and Conservation said while addressing PAC that they need those lions whose DNA can easily adjust to the local environment and to get those breeds, we need to source from the surrounding region and so had made significant progress toward importing lions from Kenya but then the conservation NGOs in Kenya raised an alarm which affected the whole deal.  The complaint in Kenya was followed by the increased poaching vice and the conservationists were forced top drop the deal and protect the remaining wildlife.

Those that are expected to arrival in March will be from a different source like Uganda and Botswana. She said.  These lions were to be brought into the park in 2012 but that was not possible because there was no fence around the park so said RDB Conservation Division manager Telesphore Ngoga.

The government installed a 5-meter high metallic mesh with three horizontally electrified cables, over a distance of 120 kilometers in 2010 with a plan to accommodate buffaloes, leopards, elephants, black rhinos and lions. The intention is to enhance tourism around the park that had almost lost its attraction after they lost all the 230 lions that they once had, this happened  after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, when the  returnees encroached on the park pushing the lions out and killing others.

The arrival of these lions is expected to have a positive impact on tourism.

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