the website of FABIO PUPIN: naturalist, herpetologist and photographer.

Nyungwe Forest National Park

by Fabio Pupin

The Nyungwe National Park, in Rwanda, embraces the largest forest patch still surviving in East Africa, an area of approximatively 970 square kilometers of endless high-altitude, mountainous rainforest, ranging from 1600 to 2950 meters of altitude and continuing to the adjacent Kibira National Park in Burundi. The forest lays on the Albertine Rift, the western branch of the Great Rift Valley, which includes also the Rwenzori mountain range in western Uganda and Congo and the Lendu Plateau in eastern Congo. Due to its extension and conservation status, Nyungwe represent one of the most important sanctuaries for the endemic fauna and flora of the Albertine Rift and offers a shelter for an impressive number of animal and plant species, even if anthropic pressure, in a highly populated country as Rwanda, is a constant threat. Here, together with Thomas Doherty-Bone, a young expert herpetologist, I’ve been assigned to continue the survey of the poorly-known herpetofauna of the forest, headed by Michele Menegon ( MTSN – Museo Tridentino di Scienze Naturali ), with the supervision and backing of WCS ( Wildlife Conservation Society ).

In the following gallery you will find some of the pictures I take during a month spent chasing herps up and down the wet, steep and breathtaking –in all senses!- Nyungwe Forest National Park.

Many thanks to Thomas Doherty-Bone, Michele Menegon, Nerissa Chao, Martin Sindikubwabo, Daniel Niyonsaba, Jeremy Nzarora, Mika Nsanzimana and all the other people of the WCS and National Park staff.