Rwanda’s Akagera National Park – new up-and-coming wildlife destination

Tourism has played a key part in Rwanda’s post-genocide recovery, overtaking coffee and tea as the top source of foreign income. Most Rwandan tourism is centred around visiting mountain gorillas, with this small east African state being one of only three countries that has them.

However, Rwanda is fast-developing other areas of tourism, notably primate trekking in Nyungwe Forest (it contains 25% of Africa’s total primate species) and the luxury sector in the capital, Kigali, with new five-star hotels springing up this year. The country’s tourism has been boosted by improved access, with more airlines now flying to Kigali, such as Turkish Airlines and Qatar Airways, while KLM has increased the frequency of flights.

The east of the country has been something of a forgotten tourism backwater ever since its National Park running along the Tanzanian border, Akagera, was profoundly damaged following the Rwandan Civil War and genocide in the 1990s, when much of the land was settled by former refugees and cattle grazing and poaching were widespread.

The park, a comfortable two- or three-hour drive from Kigali and which can be visited on a long day trip, was more than halved in size from 2500 km2 to 1122 km2 during the troubled late 1990s. However, what remains is some of the most diverse and scenic landscape in Africa. Boasting three ecoregions – savannah, mountain and swamp – the park’s Kagera River feeds into several lakes connected to papyrus swamps and making it the largest protected wetland in central Africa. In 2009 the Rwanda Development Board and the African Parks Network launched a 20-year renewable agreement for the joint management of Akagera.

Herded into the park by helicopter

Good management of the park means that recent counts estimate that some 8,000 large animals now reside there, including elephant, buffalo, topi, zebra, waterbuck, antelope and eland. There are olive baboons, vervets and blue monkeys, as well as nearly 500 bird species. Larger predators include leopard, hyena, jackal and lion, the latter being re-introduced last year, the first lions in Rwanda for 15 years. Plans are underway for the reintroduction of the black rhino too, which will restore Akagera’s ‘Big 5’ status.

More than 800 animals were herded into the park by helicopter and 42 park rangers have been trained and installed. New perimeter fencing electrified using solar energy, 120km long and 1.8m high, commissioned by the Rwandan government and completed in late 2013 as well as anti-poaching measures have made a huge difference to animal populations. With animal populations having more than quadrupled between 2010 and 2013, the park is now well on the way to being restored. Because of the lack of predators, game is surprisingly relaxed and relatively easy to find.

The increase in animal numbers is reflected in the rise of visitors to the park. Domestic visitors to the park rose from 12,809 in 2014 to 14,890 in 2015, an increase of 37%, while total visitor numbers to the park increased from 1,709 in 2000 to 29,687 in 2013. Park-earned revenues have increased six-fold - more than $1.2 million in 2015.

With a very healthy future

There isn’t a huge choice of accommodation options in the park as yet. Built in the 1970s in a motel style, Akagera Game Lodge reopened in 2003 and looks rather dated and faded, although it is being refurbished and the number of beds increased from 40 to 80. However, new accommodation options are slowly appearing.

The extremely comfortable Ruzizi Tented Lodge, an eco bush camp on the shore of Lake Ihema, linked together using boardwalks, opened in 2013 and is close to the main gate to the south. It offers that African experience so many travellers look for, such as an evening meal under the stars and a canopy alive with vervet monkeys, a potjie fish stew cooking above a fire of African sandalwood.

Late last year Karenge Bush Camp opened, an equally comfortable six-tent seasonal bush camp which will move periodically to different stunning locations within the park from season to season.

One of Akagera’s main tourism attractions is that because it is still establishing itself, it currently receives a low number of visitors and if you go on safari you are likely to encounter very few other vehicles along the way, especially in the low season. You can even enjoy a feeling of almost having the park to yourself, a complete contrast to the traffic-jam tourist conveyor-belt safari parks with large visitor numbers in Kenya and Tanzania.

After years of neglect, Akagera is now set to have a very healthy future.