This year’s International Virgin Holidays Awards for responsible tourism has been won by The Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary, for its effort to promote wildlife and environmental preservation through ecotourism. The imperative awards are in collaboration with the UK international travel directory www.responsibletravel.com, the UK’s Telegraph newspaper, Geographical Magazine as well as the World Travel Market. The awards were introduced to recognize individuals, companies and organizations in the travel industry that are committed to biodiversity management.

The chimp sanctuary won in the category of “Best for Conservation and Wildlife Habitat” and competed alongside 140 other tourism companies nominated from all over the world. The European Union (EU) head of delegation in Uganda, Vincent de Visscher, presented the award to Lily Ajarova, the managing director of Chimpanzee Sanctuary & Wildlife Conservation Trust, the NGO that manages Ngamba. He said the chimp sanctuary could be emulated in Uganda in environmental protection and ecotourism which has created jobs for Ugandans. The ceremony was held at the Ngamba Island in Mukono and was attended by representatives from Japan as well as the EU member states of France and Germany.

The chimp sanctuary was founded in 1998 and now has 44 orphaned chimpanzees which were found either injured in the wild or were recovered from animal traffickers. It is also a member of the Pan African Sanctuaries Alliance (PASA), an association of primate sanctuaries in African countries. An estimated 200,000 chimps remain in 21 African countries, of which about 5,000 are found in Uganda’s forests as well as on private land mainly in western Uganda.