This year (2012) ITFC makes 21 years of age. We asked former staff, researchers and students who have moved on to influence conservation and science in several ways, to tell us about their time at and memories of ITFC. Following are their, sometimes touching, stories:

"As the WWF Regional Representative at the time that ITFC was established, I worked very closely with Professor Kayanja, Tom Butynski and Jonathan Baranga to develop the documentation and institutional arrangements to make ITFC a sustainable part of Uganda's conservation landscape. It is very satisfying to see that, despite all of the challenges we faced at the beginning, ITFC is thriving and making the contribution to tropical forest conservation that we envisioned... One of the more interesting findings of Dr. Hamilton's assessment was that the Forest Department had been telling the communities around Bwindi that Uganda National Parks would introduce tigers if Bwindi became a National Park! This was just one of the..." Ed Wilson. Read more...

"I recall a day I was alone in the forest and ran 'into wild' Mountain Gorillas! but I survived to tell the story and a day (independence day) I got lost into the night in the forest at the bamboo zone!. When I got back at around 21.00 hours ..." Aleper Daniel Knox. Read more ...

"... amazing thing was that after working to get a search image for reptiles in particular I seemed to stumble over them everywhere. Settling back on the sofa one afternoon I was astounded to see a huge house snake (?)  zither out of the window. Then I seemed to bump into chameleons all over the place!"  Simon Jennings. Read More..

"I vividly recall all of us squatting in the bush alongside the (gorilla) group pretending to be fellow (apparently hairless) gorillas to put them at ease with our presence – this, of course, involved pretending to chomp on leaves, and mimic their constant grunts and farts.  Glamorous stuff!"John Berry. Read more ...

"... the Park had become Bwindi Impenetrable N.P. and ITFC was run by Simon Jennings. I think we were the "test case" for the new UWA permit guidelines and had quite a time of it. This time, I invited Prof. Alan Channing who has since written two guides: one to the amphibians of..." Bob Drewes. Read more ...

"After the long drive from Kampala, with numerous stops en-route to meet or pick up people, supplies and take a rest, we arrived into Bwindi at dusk.  As we entered the forest the Hallelujah Chorus from  Handel's Messiah came on in the Land-cruiser - this was automatically turned up to full volume by Jonathan- as the forest seems to erupt with a dusk chorus, Bush-babies started to come out ..." Rob Marchant. Read more ...

"... one incident where I took one foreign researcher Bob Drewes for a walk through the bamboo zone trail as he searched for frogs and reptiles. That day we encountered an elephant on our trail and I remember running off without a warning to Bob who also took off in fright following me. I have never seen such a scared Bob since then, he lost his Vietnam war hat in the process of running! We ran for about 20 minutes until we were far away from the elephant and I remember Bob telling me he has never been so scared in his life. He said he had been in Vietnam but ..." Robert Bitariho. Read more ...

"Twenty years later it may be difficult to imagine how local people felt then about the shift from a Forest Reserve to a National Park - but at least one forest guard was speared - and ...:" Tony Cunningham. Read more ...