The park lies in the north western part of Uganda, spreading inland from the shore of Lake Albert around the Victoria Nile.

Its name was derived from the Murchison Falls waterfall where the mighty River Nile explodes through a narrow gorge and flows down to become a placid river whose banks are thronged with hippos, crocodiles, waterbucks and buffaloes.

The vegetation is characterized by savannah, riverine forest and woodland. Wildlife includes lions, leopards, elephants, giraffes, buffaloes, hartebeests, oribis, Uganda kobs, Chimpanzees and many bird species including the rare shoe bill.

It is comprised of Murchison Falls National Park, Bugungu Wildlife Refuge and Karuma Wildlife Refuge. And its believed to be the oldest and largest protected area in Uganda. It encompasses 3,893 km² whereby Bugungu Wildlife Refuge is 501 km² and Karuma Wildlife Refuge is 678 km² and Budongo Forest Reserve which covers 591 km². While the national park and the two wildlife reserves are managed by the Uganda Wildlife Authority and Murchison Falls Conservation Area, Budongo Forest Reserve is managed by the National Forestry Association.

Sleeping sickness affected the inhabitants of an area of approximately 13,000 km² during the period of 1907 and 1912. Hence paving way for the establishment of the Bunyoro Game Reserve in 1910, which is now part of the National Park in Masindi District. The boundaries were extended into Gulu District north of the river, and the resulting protected area (PA) became known as the Bunyoro-Gulu Game Reserve in 1928.

Budongo Forest Reserve was established in 1932 making it became the first commercial logging concession in Uganda, and to date is one of the most intensively studied “working” forests in the world.

The boundaries of this forest continued to expand over the next thirty years until they reached the current size of 825 km². Much animosity was created by this process as locals lost land and never quite knew where the boundaries were due to the frequent changes.

Because of the reduction of the hunting in the Bunyoro-Gulu Game Reserve after forty years, the animal populations had expanded to an extent that justified upgrading the reserve, which became Murchison Falls National Park. Then the British administration established the National Parks Act of Uganda in 1952.

By the mid-1960’s, Murchison Falls had become the premier safari destination in all of East Africa, with over 60,000 visitors per year.

Due to the reduction of the sleeping sickness outbreak, people began to repopulate the areas around the new national park.

It was realized that a buffer zone of controlled-use lands was needed around the park to lessen encroachment and poaching pressures. In 1963 the Karuma and Bugungu Controlled Hunting Areas were established, they were upgraded to Game Reserves. Karuma was upgraded in1964 and Bugungu in 1968. The establishment of these PAs led to the forced eviction of some villages and new restrictions on hunting and the use of other resources.

The increasing numbers of large mammals came to an abrupt reversal from the late 1970’s to the mid-1980’s since soldiers in the armies of Idi Amin and Milton Obote were shooting animals for food and for target practice. The combination of political instability in the 70s and 80s, and the decrease in the populations of wildlife, resulted in a sharp decline in visitor numbers. But because of political stability, the numbers are increasing again.

Murchison falls is a park surrounded by lands that are marginal for farming, hence creating less chance of converting the protected area to farmlands except in the Karuma Wildlife Reserve in the south hence giving it a unique position. There is populations around here are still low enough with sufficient resources, a pro-active and inclusive approach can be taken to involve the local people in wildlife management.

There are viable breeding populations of many “charismatic” mammal and bird species which will continue to draw tourists, and those populations are still well below the carrying capacity of the land. There has been a period of over 20 years of very low impact by animals on the ecosystem. Not only does this mean that the park is poised to grow as a safari destination, but all of these factors combine to create an excellent laboratory to study the resilience of faunal species after a rapid decline, as well as vegetation succession patterns. Yet at the current time, almost no ecological research is being done in the conservation area.

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