The Security Council meeting that brought together all security personnel, executive leaders from sectors neighboring Nyungwe National Park and different partners in development convened on Wednesday the 3rd.July.2013.
This meeting was discussing the strategies to reduce the projects that cause insecurities to Nyungwe National Park including bee keeping, hunting, stone quarrying, and deforestation among others.
Fire in the park is one of the issues that are worrying park keepers especially in sunny period. According to the management of the Nyungwe National Park, 12% of its land has been affected by scorching fire in different periods since 1997 to 2010.
Louis Rugerinyange the director of Nyungwe National Park says the strategies that were put in place to reduce fire in the park were effective. This is so since between 2011 and 2012, only 8 hectares were affected by fire when only in 2010, 300 hectares were burned down.
“Strategies of sensitizing people to protect the park with the support of local authorities and security personnel have been so helpful and effective” says Rugerinyange.
“Apart from disrupting the natural course of life in the park, fires destroy the park in a way that it takes years for the wilderness to grow again” says Innocent Ndikubwimana the researcher in the park.
“Nature has its own way in the park and it may require about 15 years for the land to be the way it was before the fire. It requires a lot of hard work removing grasses and giving way to trees” he goes on to explain.
The cooperative for professional bee keepers in Kitabi sector says bee keepers who do their work in chaos are the ones causing this havoc in the park setting fire ablaze.
It is in 2005 when the wilderness of Nyungwe was transformed into Nyungwe National Park. It has 1019 hectares, it gives refuge to more than 300 creatures and 300 types of birds and it is the source of 70% provisions of water in Rwanda.
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