Uganda's largest wildlife reserve, 200,000 hectares of semi-arid savannah, expansive grassland, and river woodland, and one of the most productive semi-arid ecosystems in East Africa.
Pian Upe is home to species found nowhere else in the country. It is also one of the most under-resourced and historically overlooked protected areas in Uganda. For decades, the reserve operated as what conservationists call a "paper park", gazetted but under-funded, present on the map but largely absent in management. Wildlife declined. Habitats degraded. The reserve became invisible to most of Uganda and the world.
That has changed. Since 2022, Pian Upe has been managed under Uganda's first formal co-management partnership, a structured, nationally endorsed agreement that brings together the Uganda Wildlife Authority, Space for Giants, and Karimojong Overland Safaris to restore this reserve, rebuild its wildlife, and demonstrate what long-term, well-resourced co-management can achieve in one of Uganda's most challenging conservation landscapes.
From paper park to proof of concept.
What changed in 2022, and why it matters far beyond Uganda.
What Pian Upe is
Pian Upe sits in southern Karamoja, bordered by nine districts. It is framed by the afromontane forests of Mount Kadam, rising over 3,000 metres to the east, and Mount Napak, over 2,500 metres to the north, and lies adjacent to Mount Elgon National Park to the south. The Amudat Community Wildlife Area separates the reserve from the Kenyan border further east.
The landscape is one of open rolling savannah, scattered with acacia and combretum woodland, crossed by seasonal rivers, and punctuated by rocky outcrops and inselbergs. Lake Opeta and its wetlands lie to the west, critical water and habitat for wildlife and communities alike, while the Girik River traces the southern boundary and the Amaler, flowing off Mount Kadam into Lake Opeta, is the only permanent water source in and around the reserve.
It is a landscape that rewards patience, and a growing database of individually identified Nubian giraffe is building our understanding of how this population is recovering.
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