A significant share of every gorilla permit fee paid in Uganda doesn’t stay with the Uganda Wildlife Authority’s central budget at all — it flows directly back to the districts bordering Bwindi and Mgahinga, funding schools, boreholes and small enterprise support in the same communities whose land, and whose tolerance for wildlife on their doorstep, makes gorilla tourism possible in the first place.
Key Highlights
- 20 percent of annual park revenue is shared with neighbouring communities under Uganda’s formal revenue-sharing scheme
- Five districts around Bwindi and Mgahinga receive funds: Kisoro, Kabale, Kanungu, Rukungiri and Rubanda
- Uganda Wildlife Authority disbursed roughly UGX 2.97 billion to communities around the Bwindi-Mgahinga Conservation Area in the financial year ending June 2025
- Funds are allocated as conditional grants toward projects approved through district and sub-county planning structures
- Common uses include school renovations, borehole construction, health facility support and small business development
- The scheme exists specifically to strengthen the partnership between park management and neighbouring communities, reducing incentives for poaching or land conversion
Why Revenue Sharing Exists at All
Uganda’s revenue-sharing scheme was built on a straightforward premise: communities living directly alongside a national park bear real costs from that proximity, crop damage from wildlife straying beyond park boundaries, restricted access to land that was once used for farming or grazing, without automatically sharing in the tourism revenue that wildlife generates. Channeling a fixed 20 percent of park revenue back to neighbouring districts as conditional development funding is meant to directly address that imbalance, giving local communities a tangible stake in the park’s continued protection rather than treating conservation purely as a restriction imposed from outside, a distinction that matters enormously for how sustainable that protection actually turns out to be over the long term.
Which Communities Actually Receive the Funds
Five districts bordering the Bwindi-Mgahinga Conservation Area, Kisoro, Kabale, Kanungu, Rukungiri and Rubanda, are the designated recipients of this revenue-sharing scheme, reflecting the actual geographic footprint of communities living closest to the parks’ boundaries. This isn’t a vague national conservation fund; it’s a specifically targeted mechanism directed at the exact districts whose land and daily lives are most affected by the parks’ presence, rather than a broader national tourism levy spread thinly across the whole country.
How Much Money Is Actually Involved
In the financial year ending June 2025, Uganda Wildlife Authority disbursed roughly UGX 2.97 billion (a little under 800,000 US dollars at typical exchange rates) to communities surrounding the Bwindi-Mgahinga Conservation Area alone. That figure reflects just one conservation area’s disbursement within one financial year, giving a concrete sense of how substantial the cumulative flow of tourism revenue into these districts has become as gorilla trekking has grown into one of Uganda’s most valuable tourism products.
What the Money Actually Funds
Funds are distributed as conditional grants, meaning they’re earmarked for development projects rather than handed over as unrestricted cash, with community leaders and district planning structures deciding on specific allocations through established sub-county and district planning processes. Documented uses include borehole construction addressing clean water access, school building renovations, health facility support, and funding for small-scale enterprise development, concrete, visible projects rather than abstract conservation spending that a visiting traveller could plausibly encounter or hear about directly from a local guide.
Why the Conditional-Grant Structure Matters
Routing funds through formal district and sub-county planning structures, rather than distributing cash directly, is meant to ensure spending genuinely reflects community-identified priorities and goes toward durable infrastructure and services rather than being absorbed into short-term consumption. It also creates a layer of accountability and planning discipline that a simple lump-sum cash transfer wouldn’t provide.
How This Differs From Gorilla Permit Booking and Allocation
It’s worth distinguishing revenue sharing from the separate question of how gorilla permits themselves get booked and allocated to trekking groups — an entirely different administrative process covering waitlists, seasonal demand and booking logistics. Our guide to how gorilla permit allocation works covers that booking-side process specifically; this piece is about what happens to the money after a permit fee is paid, not how you secure the permit itself.
How the Scheme Has Grown Alongside Gorilla Tourism
Uganda’s gorilla tourism revenue has grown substantially in recent years, with total sector revenue climbing from roughly 86 billion Ugandan shillings to around 110 billion shillings year over year according to recent government reporting, a trajectory that has directly increased the absolute funds available for community revenue sharing even with the percentage share staying fixed at 20 percent. That growth reflects both rising visitor numbers and periodic permit price increases, both of which flow proportionally into a larger pool of shared community funding over time.
What Growing Revenue Means on the Ground
As the absolute figures involved have grown, so has the visible scale of funded projects in districts like Kisoro and Kabale, moving beyond small, one-off community grants toward more substantial, multi-year infrastructure commitments. This growth trajectory is part of why the scheme has become an increasingly significant piece of local economic planning in these districts, rather than a marginal supplementary fund.
Accountability and Reporting
Uganda Wildlife Authority publishes disbursement figures periodically, and district-level planning processes are, at least formally, meant to be publicly accountable through the same local government structures that oversee other public spending in these areas. This level of transparency isn’t perfect, and revenue-sharing schemes of this kind face genuine, well-documented challenges globally around ensuring funds reach intended beneficiaries efficiently and fairly, but the existence of published disbursement figures at all gives outside observers, including travellers curious about where their permit fee goes, a real way to track the scheme’s scale over time.
Why This Matters for an Individual Traveller
Knowing that a meaningful share of your permit fee is tracked and disbursed to a specific, named district, rather than disappearing into an opaque general fund, is a genuinely reassuring piece of context for travellers who care about the broader impact of their tourism spending, beyond simply the hour spent with the gorillas themselves.
The Bigger Picture: Tourism as Conservation Incentive
Revenue sharing is one piece of a broader strategy that has helped make mountain gorilla conservation one of the genuine success stories in African wildlife protection, turning a potentially adversarial relationship between protected-area management and neighbouring communities into something closer to a shared economic interest. When gorilla tourism revenue visibly funds a new school block or a working borehole, the abstract argument for protecting gorilla habitat becomes a considerably more concrete, locally-felt benefit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this revenue sharing apply to chimp trekking permits too, or just gorillas?
The formal 20-percent revenue-sharing scheme applies broadly to park revenue, including various permit and entry fees, though gorilla permits, given their high value, represent the single largest contributor to the funds actually shared with Bwindi and Mgahinga’s neighbouring districts.
Can I see revenue-sharing projects during my visit?
Some travellers do visit funded community projects, schools or boreholes, as part of a cultural or community-tourism add-on, arranged through local guides or operators with connections to specific funded initiatives.
How is the 20 percent figure decided, and could it change?
The revenue-sharing percentage is set as national policy by the Uganda Wildlife Authority and the broader government framework governing protected-area management, and while it has remained a stated policy commitment, specific disbursement figures and implementation details are periodically reviewed and reported publicly.
Does revenue sharing reduce poaching or land encroachment around the parks?
It’s widely credited as one contributing factor among several, alongside direct employment in tourism and conservation, in shifting local economic incentives toward supporting rather than undermining park protection, though it operates alongside other conservation and law-enforcement measures rather than as a sole solution.
Is revenue sharing unique to Uganda, or does Rwanda do something similar?
Rwanda operates a comparable community revenue-sharing scheme around Volcanoes National Park, reflecting the same broader regional recognition that community buy-in is essential to sustainable gorilla conservation across all three range countries, not just Uganda specifically.
Recommended Safaris
Understanding where your permit fee goes adds real context to a gorilla trekking trip. Our guide to gorilla permit allocation covers the booking side of the process, and our Echuya Forest Reserve piece covers one of the districts, Kisoro and Kabale, that benefits directly from this revenue-sharing scheme. Ready to plan your own gorilla trekking trip to Bwindi or Mgahinga, with a fuller picture of the impact your permit fee has? Reach our team through our Book Now page and we’ll plan it around your dates.
No comment