By Richard Drasimaku
In 2021 Fidelis Kanyamunyu and his colleague David Gonahase, both conservationists in Western Uganda, began the “My Gorilla Family App.”
This was at the height of the Covid19 pandemic lockdown when lack of movement of tourists had wiped out conservation revenues.
The economic hardships arising from lockdown inactivity posed further risks to the community members surrounding national parks and protected areas whose livelihood depends on the vibrancy of the parks.
To ensure that the people did not relapse into poaching, the Uganda wildlife Authority encouraged the people to come up with innovative ideas to keep revenues streaming to continue conservation activities and support park neighbours.
Kanyamunyu’s My Gorilla Family App came in handy, allowing conservation enthusiasts and tourists to enjoy gorilla trekking from the safe comfort of their homes anywhere in the world.
Users simply subscribe to become members of the digital community of gorilla conservationists and scroll on their smart phone screens to watch the daily lives of the gorillas.
The app gives all access pass to the home of more than 50% of the world’s remaining mountain gorillas, allowing users to enjoy their daily excursions, migrations, feeding patterns and exciting celebration of birth days.
“This is a new thinking which takes Uganda’s gorilla conservation to the digital world,” says Kanyamunyu.
How my gorilla family app works
Implemented in collaboration with the Uganda Wildlife Authority, Round Bob and the Naturalist, the app uses video feeds from on-ground trekkers who use the latest technology provided by Round Bob to get clips of the gorillas and transmit the data for upload for interactive sessions on the platform.
It displays the daily lives of the groups of gorillas as they roam the jungle. In other words, it is a digital way of penetrating the impenetrable Bwindi national park.
Apart from ensuring new way of earning revenue from the subscribers, the app also eliminates congestion of people inside the park, says Yona Niyonshuti, the programs coordinator and information technology specialist.
“You save time and money. For example, for someone in Arua to visit Bwindi or Mgahinga, you need like five days. One day to travel to Kampala, another day to travel to the game park, third day to trek after gorillas, another day to visit and see what communities are doing such as crafts shops and eco-tourism projects and then the final day to travel back,” he explained.
Whereas the UWA is the custodian of the data generated through the hitech cameras, the naturalist mobilises the park edge communities to support conservation, particpate in merchandising and celebrate gorillas through events.
This arrangement complements gorilla monitoring, documents rare behaviour traits to deepen the understanding of the gorilla lifestyle and offers moments that broaden the recreational opportunities.
It also allows the communities a wider spectrum to develop talent and skills in craftsmanship where the art pieces are marketed and traded online as non-fungible tokens in a digital space.
The officials noted that the My Gorillas Family App is very popular with European and American tourists, especially during the June to September months when the northern hemisphere is experiencing summer.
They plan to enlist subscribers to do more than monthly pays and market the App in order to enroll more people, increase sensitizations through media and social media.
Why Bwindi and Mgahinga?
Both Bwindi and Mgahinga have a combined total of five tourism prints hosting 26 gorilla families (group).
These are Buhoma that has seven families, Ruhija with five families, Nkuringo with five families, Mgahinga which has one habituated family and Rushaga having nine families.
Apart from Mgahinga which has a habituated tourism print i.e. where tourists can spend up to six hours with trackers in the jungle, the rest of the tracking clusters in Bwindi are for normal tracking i.e. lasting about one hour with professional tour guides.
App Solves Affordability Challenge
Each subscriber parts with USD$2 per month to get digital access to one or more families of gorillas.
This is cheaper than the money a tourist would part with when they visit for physical sighting. By September 27, 2025, there were 500 subscribers on the App, generating USD $1000 monthly in subscription revenue and USD12,000 annually.
Kanyamunyu said they remit 40% of the revenue generated to the Uganda Wildlife Authority, 20% to the Park community and retain 40% to run their operations.
Nelson Guma, the Chief Warden in charge of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, acknowledged the positive contribution that the My Gorilla Family App has made towards conservation and promotion of tourism.
“It is an innovative project that leverages technology to provide virtual experience of interacting with the gorilla families,” notes Guma, asserting that the My Gorilla Family App eliminates the possibility of zoonotic disease transmission, offers cheap solutions to interact with the majestic gorillas and provides benefits to communities through revenue sharing and merchandising of crafts products.
Guma added that the App also allows tourists and conservation enthusiasts to enjoy celebration of conservation successes such as gorilla carnivals.
“As we develop the general management plans of the gorilla game parks, we will integrate these initiatives into other approaches that create positive conservation outcomes and position the parks as the preferred primate tourism destinations,” he said.
However, both Niyonshuti and Kanyamunyu agree that in the post-pandemic era, the My Gorilla App serves more to tickle the minds of the users to consider the physical visit to the conservation area for extra thrill.
For physical tracking, UWA charges tourists from within the East African Community member states sh300,00 for gorilla tracking, USD $500 for the rest of Africa and USD $600 for foreign residents and USD $800 for foreign non-residents.
For habituation tracking, the conservation entity charges USD $415,000 for foreigners and USD $1000 for African residents and researchers.
The Bwindi, Mgahinga spectacle
A UNESCO world heritage site known for its ecological diversity, Bwindi impenetrable National Park along with Mgahinga is the home to over 500 of the remaining Mountain Gorillas.
The endangered species is one of the tourism magnets, however, the Covid 19 (SARS COV2) pandemic severely challenged that status.
As the pandemic surged across the globe, engulfing nations and inflicting deaths to people and threatening wildlife, the Ugandan government responded by imposing one of the longest lockdowns in the world.
The My Gorilla Family App was developed in 2021, a year after tourist arrivals fell to their lowest due to Covid19.
Few exemptions of movement were allowed for essential people in the key sectors of governance and economy which included medical personnel, the security community, and media among others.
The Uganda Wildlife Authority issued strict guidelines for those transiting through game parks and protected areas.
One of the things prohibited was provision of food to wildlife by travelers and banning of proximity closer than 10 meters to wildlife, especially the gorillas and chimpanzees.
This was to protect the fragile primates that share close (98%) genetic make to humans from contracting Covid19.
Three years after the lifting of the lockdown, visitors numbers to Uganda are recovering and are expected to surpass the pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2025.
Community involvement in gorilla conservation
The gorilla is an iconic primate in Bwindi and especially Mgahinga Gorilla National Park to which visits come with unique opportunities of sighting the rare and endangered golden monkey too.
Elephants and leopards also prowl those parks as well as the plethora of the Albertine rift valley birds chirping in a lively atmosphere, rickety insects and the amphibians.
Over the years, the UWA has developed a closely knit relation with the neighbouring community through the Bwindi community tour operators and hotel owners association (BCTOHA) that among others does sensitization on behalf of the conservation entity.
Ezera Mugyenyi, secretary of BCTOHA disclosed that the get communities to embrace conservation, to embrace income generating activities and cooperate with rangers.
“We partner with local governments to operate craft shops, and hotels, numbering 24 comfort hotels and lodges which are scattered in and around Bwindi and Mgahinga,” he said.
Mugyenyi pointed out the Bwindi community hospital as a clear result of the compact UWA-community working relationship in conservation management that was achieved through thoughtful investment of shared revenues from tourism.
BCTOHA works in partnership with UWA, Ministry of Tourism and the local governments of Kisoro, Rubanda and Kanungu.
There is also the conservation of the Bwindi Batwa Cultural Rocks and Cave Association formed in collaboration with the African University of science and technology.
Mugyenyi says among the key activities is engaging the young people including the Batwa in tree planting where Africa Conservation program, Kiwanis Club of Bwindi Forest and Tree adoption Uganda among other organisations are also active.
Doreen Katusiime, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities in a major policy brief mid this year, emphasized the role of digitization and marketing in international media and social media to further drive the tourism industry of Uganda.
The aim is to close the year 2025 with 1.6 million visitor arrivals, earn more money from gate collections and tour fees and accelerate socio-economic transformation.
“The tourism industry continues to be a pillar of this country’s economy. In the forthcoming 4th National Development Plan (NDP IV), Tourism is identified as an anchor sector to create jobs, improve standards of living, and promote inclusive development across the country,” says Katusiime.
