The Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) is a semi-autonomous
Ugandan government
Uganda is a presidential republic in which the President of Uganda is the head of state and the prime minister is the head of government business. There is a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is ...
agency that aims to
conserve, manage and regulate Uganda’s wildlife. "UWA is mandated to ensure sustainable management of wildlife resources and supervise wildlife activities in Uganda, both within and outside the protected areas".
As of April 2020, UWA manages ten
national park
A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...
s, twelve
wildlife reserves, and fourteen
wildlife sanctuaries. UWA also provides guidance for five community wildlife areas. It is governed by a board of trustees appointed by the
Minister of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities, currently
Tom Butime.
Location
The headquarters of UWA are located at Plot. 7, Kira Road, in the neighborhood called
Kamwookya, in the
Central Division of the city of
Kampala, Uganda's capital.
The UWA headquarters building is sandwiched between the
Uganda Museum to the west and the
British High Commission
A British High Commission is a British diplomatic mission, equivalent to an embassy, found in countries that are members of the Commonwealth of Nations. Their general purpose is to provide diplomatic relationships as well as travel information, ...
to the east, along Kira Road. The geographical coordinates of this location are:0°20'10.0"N, 32°35'01.0"E (Latitude:0.336111, Longitude:32.583611).
Governance
Board of Trustees
The agency is governed by a nine-person
board of trustees
A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...
, appointed by the Minister of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities. The current board, which was appointed in March 2018, is chaired by Benjamin Otto, a former Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism. The board serves for three years. The table below lists all the board members.
Management
On 26 March 2018, Sam Mwandha, who was previously employed at UWA in the early 2010s, officially assumed the office of
executive director of Uganda Wildlife Authority, succeeding Dr. Andrew Seguya, who had served two consecutive three-year terms in that office.
History
The UWA was established in August 1996 by the Uganda Wildlife Statute, which merged the ''Uganda National Parks Department'' with the ''Uganda Game and Fisheries Department''.
In 2000, the Statute became an Act of parliament.
The Act was amended in 2019 into the ''Uganda Wildlife Act, 2019''.
References
External links
Official Website
{{Protected Areas of Uganda
Nature conservation in Uganda
Organizations established in 1996
1996 establishments in Uganda
National park administrators
Organisations based in Kampala
Kampala Central Division
Government agencies established in 1996