Abstract:
The role forests play in the livelihood of forest adjacent communities cannot be underestimated. In Africa and Asia, about 80% of target poverty groups are in rural areas (Todaro and Smith, 2009:238) and this is typical of Uganda, where majority of the poor live in rural communities with natural resources mostly forests being their source of livelihood. Uganda’s forest base is shrinking at an alarming rate with increased loss forest cover from 92,000 hectares annually in 2005 to 174,000 hectares as per the state of forest report 2016. The Government introduced Collaborative Forest Management (CFM) approach as one of the ways to reduce conflicts, forest illegalities, create sense of ownership, promote sustainable use of forest resources and contribute to transforming the lives of the people involved. However, it’s not very clear as to whether the introduction of CFM has led to the improvement or detoriation of community livelihoods. The study therefore assessed the impact of CFM to the livelihood of forest adjacent communities of Budongo Central Forest Reserve.
The study found that 50% of the respondents were dissatisfied with the practice of the CFM approach, 35% were satisfied while 15% were not so sure. Under the social, economic and cultural community livelihood status of the forest adjacent communities before introduction of CFM, the study found that communities living adjacent to the forest had unlimited access to the forest reserve resources such as firewood, grazing and timber cutting that led emergency of trading centres and job creation. Socially, the relationship between the local community and the NFA was very poor and hostile. After the introduction of CFM, the livelihoods of the forest adjacent communities had three folds namely: their social and economic livelihoods situation improved (access to forest resources, land for tree planting and linkage of CFM members to other forest related companies and organisations), others detoriated while others remained the same.
The study recommended NFA to stick to the provisions within the CFM agreements and provide feedback in case of any changes, revise the expired CFM agreements including those whose timeframe may not have yet reached but rather certain conditions and circumstance have prevailed that might necessitate revision e.g. eco-tourism and increasing the alternative economic enterprises to the communities living adjacent to the forest and ensure that the whole value chain is realized.
