Gishwati-Mukura is a new National Park where an ambitious multi-decade project is under way to create space for nature by linking up fragments of the natural forests that, straddling the Congo-Nile watershed highest ground between two of the world’s great river basins, once joined Nyungwe in the south to the Virunga Volcanoes in the north of Rwanda .  The larger Gishwati forest and smaller Mukura forest cover 34 square kilometres plus a buffer zone, with some 60 species of trees, including indigenous hardwoods and bamboo. Gishwati is home to a group of 20 chimpanzees which live alongside golden monkeys, L’Hoest’s and Blue Monkeys. Over 230 species of birds have been recorded in Gishwati and over 160 at Mukura, among them Albertine Rift Endemic species and forest specialists.