This is the fourth story in the Mongabay Series – Protected Areas in East Africa. Read Part One, Two and Three KATWE, Uganda — In 1889, the British journalist Henry Morton Stanley stumbled out of the forests of Central Africa into the town of Katwe, a settlement on the shore of a sulfurous volcanic lake. The lake’s vast deposits of salt were famed across the region, drawing traders and making Katwe a desired prize. The Basangora, local pastoralists known for their cattle-rearing prowess, had waged fierce battles over control of the salt mine, one of the largest in Africa, against rival Bantu kingdoms. “The possession of Katwe town, which commands the lakes, is a cause of great jealousy,” Stanley later wrote. He’d arrived in Katwe just as the “scramble for Africa” was heating up, in the wake of King Leopold II’s Berlin Conference where the rules of European colonialism had been set. Not long after Stanley’s departure, Frederick Lugard captured the town. Along with the plains and hills to its east, Katwe would go on to become part of the British protectorate of Uganda, where it remained until independence in 1962. The salt mine at Lake Katwe. Image by Ashoka Mukpo for Mongabay. Stanley, Lugard and their royal European patrons are long gone now. But their ghosts still haunt the landscape, if only in name. The highest peak of the Rwenzori mountains that rise above Katwe is named Mount Stanley, below which lie lakes Albert, George and Edward. There are still…This article was originally published on Mongabay
The colonial ghosts of Uganda’s ‘Queen Elizabeth’ park
