Sierra Leone’s relationship with its natural heritage has long been one of unrealised potential. The country has some of the most accessible wildlife in West Africa, a national animal that can be seen within 40 minutes of the capital, and a coastline that competes with anywhere on the continent. What it has lacked, until now, is the infrastructure to convert those assets into a serious tourism economy. The Tacugama Innovation Centre is the most deliberate attempt yet to change that.
What is being built
The Tacugama Innovation Centre is one of three flagship tourism destination projects designed to reduce Sierra Leone’s dependence on extractive industries while boosting tourism performance and creating jobs. Construction has reached an advanced stage, with the centre envisioned as a complete ecotourism hub.
The facility is designed as a multi-purpose complex, integrating an amphitheatre, cinema, restaurant, library, conference and classroom spaces, alongside hiking trails, observation points, and family-friendly recreational areas. It also serves as a centre for conservation education and environmental awareness. The project will feature a botanical garden with a butterfly dome, a bird-watching tower, a children’s playground, a greenhouse and a rooftop restaurant, alongside a range of visitor support amenities.
The Tacugama Experience Innovation Centre is the country’s second EDGE-certified building, positioning it as a flagship for sustainable tourism development in the region. EDGE certification is an internationally recognised green building standard administered by the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group.
The institution behind it
Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary was founded in 1995 by conservationist Bala Amarasekaran and his wife Sharmila, initially to enforce wildlife laws and rescue and rehabilitate critically endangered orphaned Western chimpanzees. It has grown into a diverse conservation organisation caring for close to 100 chimpanzees on-site, while also engaged in community outreach, wildlife field research, environmental sustainability, conservation education and alternative livelihoods programmes.
The sanctuary was born from a single act: Amarasekaran, a Sri Lankan accountant living in Sierra Leone, came across an injured baby chimpanzee being sold in a village, bought it, named it Bruno, and raised it at home. Bruno’s rescue was the first of many, and the inspiration behind everything that followed – Sierra Leone Tourism
The sanctuary currently attracts an estimated 25,000 visitors a year and operates six eco-lodges within the forest, with guided tours running twice daily by appointment.
The government backing
Vice President Dr Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh led a high-level delegation to inspect the site on March 31, 2026, and commended the centre’s modern design and multifunctional facilities as reflecting a bold vision for the future of tourism. He cautioned, however, that persistent land encroachment could threaten the project’s targeted completion deadline of April 30, 2026.
The project sits within the Sierra Leone Economic Diversification Project (SLEDP), a five-year government programme backed by a USD$40mn World Bank grant. Through SLEDP, the government has prioritised tourism as a vehicle for economic diversification since 2019, upgrading sites including the Leicester Peak Viewing Platform and the Bureh Beach Surf Club alongside the Tacugama development.
Sierra Leone is also set to host the 3rd UN Tourism Gastronomy Forum for Africa in Freetown from December 2 to 4, 2026, following discussions at ITB Berlin — a signal of the country’s growing ambition to position itself on the international tourism stage.
The numbers the project is working towards
In 2024, Sierra Leone attracted just over 117,000 visitors and earned slightly more than USD$100mn in tourism revenues, employing around 49,600 people. With the right investments, arrivals could rise by nearly two-thirds to 185,000 by 2034, revenues could more than double to USD$245mn, and jobs could expand significantly.
The honest gap
The Innovation Centre represents a genuine leap in ambition, but the structural constraints around it remain real. Sierra Leone has some of the highest visa and arrival taxes in the region, limited flight connections, costly transport and poor road infrastructure to its attractions. The investment environment is hampered by a complex regulatory environment and low access to finance.
The Western chimpanzee, Sierra Leone’s national animal and the sanctuary’s reason for existing, remains critically endangered. Habitat loss from deforestation, coastal erosion, sand mining and plastic waste continues to threaten the very tourism assets the government is investing in protecting. Sierra Leone hosts the third largest chimpanzee population in West Africa, with more than half living in non-protected, human-degraded areas.
What the Tacugama Innovation Centre does is give Sierra Leone something it has lacked: a world-class physical asset around which to build a credible ecotourism narrative. A butterfly dome and a rooftop restaurant in the forest above Freetown will not, on their own, resolve visa costs or airport transfers. But they signal to international operators and conservation-focused travellers that this is a country building in good faith — and that the foundation story, a single rescued chimpanzee named Bruno, is one worth coming to hear in person.