Rwanda, which is among the most densely populated countries in Africa, lost more than 65 percent of its forest cover over a 40-year period, and many of its permanent wetlands have been drained for rice and sugarcane cultivation.
In 2025 and 2026, the team’s goal in the Nile Basin has been to descend the three major tributaries flowing into Lake Victoria and then follow the river north to Uganda’s border with South Sudan.
The team has already identified a new population of red colobus monkeys—one of Africa’s most endangered groups of monkeys—in Burundi’s Ruvubu National Park. “There is very sparse mentions of them in Burundi in the literature,” says Sabine Henry, a senior researcher with the Wilderness Project.
The 25-day expedition in the Nile’s Rwandan headwaters in February, with 16 team members, included a film crew from the BBC. The team covered more than 400 miles and took measurements at 103 survey sites.
As with any expedition to Africa’s most storied of rivers, an exploration of the Nile would not be complete without puncturing a few misconceptions.