Kazinga Channel

Kazinga Channel is located to the northeast of the Commonwealth Game asset, Queen Elizabeth National Park, and stretches 35 kilometres from the lakes: Edward to the north down to Lake George to the south. Lake Edward is a freshwater lake that is only 9 kilometres in breadth, while Lake George has a narrowness of only 4 kilometres between Ijumu point in the west and Ntungamo Peninsula. The channel forms the jersey neck between the two lakes, and has an altitude of 910 meters above sea level at Lake Edward, falling slightly to 910 meters at Lake George and then finally narrowing down to zero at the outlet of Lake George. The channel is, in fact, deeply entrenched within rift valley walls that ascend at Nyakasura hill in the west, Dejebe hills and Ngogomweme hill to the east.

Queen Elizabeth National Park (QENP) is the second largest national park in Uganda, covering an area of 1978 km2. It is located in western Uganda and shared between the districts of Kasese, Bushenyi, Rukungiri, and Kamwenge. The park was established in 1952 and gazetted to protect the open savannah of the Kazinga Channel. The park was named after Queen Elizabeth II, and it is known for its wildlife, including Uganda kob, hippopotami, African buffalo, African bush elephant, lion, and leopard. The area of the park extends to Lake Edward, some 40 km2 of it along the Congo border.

The park is one of the most visited parks in Uganda. In 1960, the Kazinga Channel was named a Ramsar wetland and snakes through part of the park. This strip is predominant with ecosystems like mongoose, hippos, swampy vegetation, forested vegetation, solonchak, and bromeliad-rich vegetation. The area is known to be a haven for birdwatchers and anglers. The park can be approached most conveniently from Kampala on all-season road via Mbarara, accessible also from Water. Salient features of QENP include the chimpanzee sanctuary in Kyambura Gorge and the Maramagambo Forest. Other features in the park include Kasenyi plain, Kyambura river, Lake Edward, Lake George, Ishasha river, Ishasha plains, and the equator crossing.

The Kazinga Channel has various significances including being one of the most visited and trusted tourism destinations in Uganda. It is essential for distribution of wildlife within the Park based on feeding habit domains, offers viewing of large congregations of hippos, crocs and various birds including a variety of water birds. It also offers the major tourist activity of boat cruises to see the large concentrations of hippos and crocs, elephants, buffalo, various antelopes, monitor lizards, a variety of water birds and forest birds, among others.

The Kazinga Channel is a smaller, less worrisome nemesis for Uganda, and particularly Queen Elizabeth National Park (QENP) that has had flooding problems for decades. This natural wonder of Uganda is home to an overflow right in south-western Uganda. The Kazinga Channel increases landscape variability in the otherwise relatively homogenized land-use regimes occurring in and around QENP. The Kazinga Channel is also a significant sink for the MVNP elephants and offers potential for five megafauna corridors between the two national parks: at Maramagambo forest (eastern side of the channel), at Lake Edward (western side of the channel), the Kazinga Channel (connecting the western and eastern side of the park), King George (in the central region) and the Kafue River basin (southern side of the park).