Located on Lake Victoria in Uganda, Ngamba Island provides a long-term forest sanctuary to 44 orphan chimpanzees.

Rescued from the horrific bushmeat and pet trades, many of these chimpanzees will have seen their parents and family killed in front of them, and most arrived on the island traumatised and malnourished. Ngamba is seen by many as a role model sanctuary with good facilities and extremely skilled care-givers and vets. The chimpanzees live in one large social group and spend the majority of their time in a 100 acre rainforest enclosure.

The Chimpanzee Sanctuary and Wildlife Conservation Trust which runs Ngamba also undertakes a range of targeted field conservation activities aimed at protecting chimpanzees in the wild. In Hoima District, western Uganda, there are many chimpanzee populations on the very brink of survival – living in tiny, unprotected and isolated forest patches. When these chimpanzees venture into the surrounding farms and destroy crops there is a danger they will be killed and the infants sold into the pet trade. Dedicated teams from Ngamba work with local communities to protect these fragile populations through education, community development and applied research. This includes initiatives to provide benefits from existing standing forest, and a programme of afforestation to increase available natural habitat.