Conservation through community use of plant resources

SUMMARY: This report was generated as part of CARE's Development-Through-Conservation (DTC) project in Uganda. The project attempted to reconcile local needs with forest conservation at Bwindi Impenetrable and Mgahinga Forests, which were declared National Parks in 1991. Collaborative management of protected area resources was selected as an approach to sustainable conservation. The Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) established legal agreements for community use of resources from the protected areas. This strategy was seen as a means of compensating communities for the costs of creating and protecting the parks. Harvesting under the agreements began at Bwindi in 1994. Community users collect small quantities of resources, monitoring mechanisms have been established and relations between communities and park staff have improved. The authors note that negotiating resource use from within these protected areas has returned a measure of equity to local people, and better relations between the parks and adjacent communities are likely to reduce the risk of deliberate forest destruction. They recommend that continued capacity building of the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) in techniques of resource assessment and community interaction. They note that although community support for conservation should reduce the need for heavy law enforcement, the UWA must develop the capacity to effectively control forest use and enforce park rules. The authors suggest that co-management has great potential for effectively including local communities in the management of protected areas in Uganda and elsewhere in Africa, and can contribute to the resolution natural resource use conflicts beyond those engendered by protected areas