Kalinzu Forest Reserve

Great Chimp Tracking In One Of Uganda’s Largest Forests

Kalinzu and the contiguous Maramagambo Forest (Queen Elizabeth NP) together form one of the largest rainforests and most important chimpanzee strongholds in Uganda. Unlike Queen Elizabeth, however, Kalinzu is not a national park but managed by the National Forest Authority, and tourism there is run as a local community project. The most popular activity in Kalinzu is chimp tracking. I did this here for the first time in 2023, when it definitely lived up to its reputation as one of the best places to look for our closest genetic cousins in the wild.

An impressive feature of our excursion was the informative and enthusiastic guide. In most places where I've tracked chimps, the emphasis has been strongly on locating and seeing these creatures, rather than experiencing the forest interior as a whole. At Kalinzu, by contrast, we enjoyed a relaxed walk with plenty of stops to look at plants and other wildlife. Indeed, as we hiked through the forest, our guide pointed out four different monkey species (black-and-white colobus, red-tailed, blue and L’Hoest’s), along with a host of forest birds including black-and-white-casqued hornbill and black-billed turaco.

No two chimp experiences are exactly the same. But our extended encounter with two males and a female, all eating jackfruits low in the canopy, was very enjoyable, not least because there were no other tourists around. From this point of view, Kalinzu is very different to the more popular Kibale National Park, where it's not unusual for three or four trekking parties to converge chaotically on one chimp sighting. In terms of effort, the hilly terrain on the escarpment above Queen Elizabeth NP means that Kalinzu can be somewhat harder work than other Ugandan chimp tracking sites such as Kibale and Budongo, but not hugely so, and it won't be a problem if you are reasonably fit.