ASSESSING THE IMPLICATIONS OF DECENTRALIZATION ON LIVELIHOOD, BIODIVERSITY, AND ECOLOGICAL SUSTAINABILITY IN UGANDA

2. ASSESSING THE IMPLICATIONS OF DECENTRALIZATIONON LIVELIHOOD, BIODIVERSITY, AND ECOLOGICAL SUSTAINABILITY IN UGANDA A PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF THE PILOT SANREM/UFRIC SITE PRESENTATION TO IFRI MICHIGAND UNIVERSITY APRIL 09, 2008

3. Content • Land Ownership and Forest History in Uganda • Forest Policy and Subsequent Reforms • Decentralization (political and environmental) • Implication of Decentralization on Livelihood, Biodiversity and Ecological Sustainability • House Types, Occupations, Food Security, Diseases • GIS and RS (landscape scale) • Forest Governance • Opportunities and Constraints • Conclusions and Recommendations

4. Land Tenure • Crown or government • Freehold (customary and mailo) • Lease • Bibanja (squatters) Under the Uganda Agreement of 1900, there was a paradigm shift in landholding in Uganda, and the land tenurial systems drastically changed: Crown, mailo, leasehold, and freehold interests were introduced and replaced traditional, customary, and communal landholdings. For instance, in Buganda the 1900 land settlement resulted in land being shared almost equally between the leading chiefs and their relatives and friends, on one hand, and the Uganda Protectorate Government on the other. Out of a population of close to 1,000,000 people only 3,700 were allocated land. The rest were left landless.

5. Distribution of Forest Types in Uganda Source: National Biomass Study of the Forest Department (1999)

6. Distribution of Forest Types in Uganda(cont’d)

8. Decentralization in Uganda: The Structural Aspects • Uganda has a five-tier local government system comprised of administrative and legislative functions with executive officers performing the administrative functions while elected representatives perform the legislative functions. • The overarching level of local government is the district (Local Council 5), below which is the county in rural areas or a municipality in urban areas, both of which are essentially administrative units. The next levels of local governance, in decreasing order, include the sub-county (Local Council 3), the parish (Local Council 2), and the village (Local Council 1) (see Fig. 1). • The above seemingly democratic structural arrangement for decentralized governance has not yet been adequately complemented by the necessary operational arrangements for effective local empowerment, particularly in the environment-related sectors.

9. Fig. 1 An Organogram of the UgandaLocal Government System DISTRICT COUNCIL (LC 5) COUNTY (LC 4) (Rural setting) MUNICIPALITY (LC 4) (Urban setting) SUB-COUNTY (LC 3) CITY DIVISION (LC 3) PARISH (LC 2) VILLAGE (LC 1)

10. Decentralization in Relation to Community Forest Management in Uganda • The main law governing environmental issues in Uganda is the National Environmental Statute of 1995. It encourages “maximum participation of the people of Uganda in the development policies, plans and processes for the management of the environment.” The National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) is the coordinating body and charged with the responsibility to work with lower-level institutions, namely the district and local environmental committees, to ensure that (1) environmental concerns are integrated into their planning processes, (2) local people participate in environmental planning, and (3) local people and resources are mobilized to solve environmental problems. • Committees were created to partner local government units with collaborative resource management and include production and environmental committees (PECs) at the district, sub-county, parish, and village levels (see Fig. 2). The PECs consist of elected representatives as well as technocrats and bureaucrats. Representatives of the PECs sit in the Community Protected Area Committee (CPAC).

11. Decentralization in Relation to Community Forest Management in Uganda (cont’d) • The political decentralization in Uganda provided the organizational mainframe upon which an additional hardware to sustain environmental decentralization was later superposed. • The initial phases of decentralization in Uganda appear to have been dominated by the political aspects of the policy, with environmental aspects occupying backstage. • A combination of factors, including those associated with a global local politics of the environment, was instrumental in accelerating environmental decentralization and elevating environmental issues into the policy and legislative realms. At the global level, the politics of funding made the mainstreaming of environmental issues a major precondition for accessing donor support.

12. Fig. 2 An Organogram of How PECs Relateto the Local Governance Structure DISTRICT COUNCIL DPEC NFA, UWA NEMA, WDA CITY DIVISION (LC 3) PEC SUB-COUNTY (LC 3) PEC PARISH (LC 2) PPEC CPAC VILLAGE (LC 1) VPEC Resource User Group

13. Mabira Site(see Fig. 3) • Site name • Wakisi – one of the sub-counties within which Mabira Forest Reserve is located • Forest name • Nakalanga – a forest patch within Mabira Forest Reserve that the local people use. It is part of compartments 171 and 183 with a total area of 87 ha. NB: Compartments are management divisions (blocks) of forest

14. Fig. 3 Mabira Forest Reserve Showing the Study Area • Settlements studied: • Nakalanga • Kirugu • Total HHs: 1,020 • No. sampled: 221

15. Objectives • Assess the implications of decentralization on livelihoods of different groups • Determine how to accommodate all stakeholders in relevant policies and programs • Assess the implications of decentralization on biodiversity and ecological sustainability • Provide recommendations for policy reforms on future resource use, including sustainable resource management

16. Why Mabira? • An important forest ecosystem in Uganda and a watershed for the Lake Victoria basin and Lake Kyoga in mid-northern Uganda • Has enormous pressure for subsistence use and commercial farming of sugarcane and tea (conflicting interests of the stakeholders and threat of degazetting) • Heavily encroached by local communities in the 1970s and the early 1980s, but people were evicted in 1988 • Comparable to Kakamega Forest in Kenya that is being studied by the Kenyan SANREM team

17. Why These Settlements? • Most of the households (HHs) are within 2 km from the forest boundary. • Settlements have been in existence since the late 1940s. • They are heavily populated, mostly by migrants from eastern Uganda (1020 HHs with an average of 8 people per HH). Only 221 HHs were randomly interviewed.

18. Why These Settlements? (cont’d) • Households “own” small landholdings averaging less than 2 ha each. The settlements consist of land legally owned by two landlords and a patch of public land. • More than 30% of the HHs depend on the forest to earn a living through the sale of forest products and production of food stuff.

19. House Types

20. Occupations

21. Food Security: Land vs. Decision Making Kirugu Nakalanga

22. Diseases

23. Major Products Harvested • Products accessed by women and products used by men: • Women – Firewood for subsistence, fodder for goats, medicinal herbs, water, forest foods (e.g., mushrooms, green vegetables), and cultivated beans • Men – Fodder for cattle, commercial fuelwood collection, charcoal, and cultivated maize for both sale and subsistence use

25. GIS and Remote Sensing • Interpretation of 1959 land cover (aerials) • FR boundary, 2 Km buffer • 82 settlement around and 15 within • THF and wood land savanna(see Fig. 4) • 1989-93 (before decentralization) by SPOT satellite images • Supervised classification of 2006 TM satellite images

26. Fig. 4 1959 Land Cover: THF and Woodland Savanna FR boundary 2-km buffer

27. Forest Governance • 1 Area Sector Manager • 1 Area Supervisor • 3 Patrol men contracted • NFA Staff - Collaborative Forest Management

28. The Role of Local Communities in Local Governance • Planting and maintenance of trees in degraded areas • Formation of collaborative forest management (not completed) • Conflict resolution between illegal harvesters and NFA (LC 1) • Diversification of income-generating activities to reduce reliance on forests, such as: • Bee keeping • Pineapple cultivation • Livestock husbandry

29. The Role of Local Councils in Local Governance • The role of the District Forest Service • Advisor to private forest owners and tree farmers • Licensing for harvesting of forest products on local forest reserves and public land • Collection of taxes on forest produce (e.g., charcoal and timber) • The District lacks resources to carry out most of the above.

30. What the Communities Want • Use the taungya system (combination of trees and plants in a field) to plant and manage a buffer zone around the forest • More involvement in monitoring and enforcement of forest rules, especially the forest adjacent to their land • Involvement in allocating licenses for firewood collection

31. Implications of Decentralization on Livelihood of Local Communities • Access to commercial forest produce is limited, because issuing of licences for charcoal or timber is far and problematic. • Both men and women have access to fodder for their livestock. • There is no significant involvement in resource management by the local communities at present.

32. Forest Condition in the Patch Studied • No timber-size class observed in the plots studied – average DBH was 19 cm. We had expected average DBH to be more than 40 cm in this ecosystem. • Few commercial timber species were encountered. • Species richness was low – 32 species – much lower than 119 species recorded in the 1980 NBS inventory and 142 species in the 1968 FD inventory. • Only 24 tree species were recorded instead of more than 70 tree species expected in this ecosystem • 30% of the trees were Brosnetia paperifera (Paper Mulberry) an invasive tree species.

33. Forest Condition in the Patch Studied(cont’d) • All plots studied had evidence of harvesting. • Average crown cover was 20%. • 30% of the sampled plots had evidence of recent cultivation.

34. Opportunities • Stakeholders at Local, Sub-County, District and National levels are aware of the importance of environmental protection in Mabira forest • Decentralization is fully institutionalized as a governance strategy • Capacities of local communities and local government are being enhanced • Promotion of PMA and poverty-eradication programs by NAADS in the area • improved cattle and goat raising • Pineapple processing • Upland rice cultivation • Promotion of horticultural crops

35. Constraints • High population depending on the forest for livelihood • Limited alternative sources of income • Limited landholdings • Declining soil fertility • Limited participation of local communities in decision making and operational-level activities • The proposed de-gazettement of the forest for sugarcane growing

36. Conclusions • After our first visit, there is limited impact of decentralization policy on the livelihood of local communities including women, the poor, and marginalized groups. • Interest groups of commercial sugarcane growers and subsistence and commercial product users are not yet harmonized. • Local capacity has been introduced and should be continued

37. Recommendations • The process of formation of collaborative forest management should be completed. • The structure of NFA at the forest/local level should be reviewed. • The ecological condition of the forest is influenced by multiple factors at national, district, and community levels. • Strategies for rehabilitating the forest should be developed with the participation of local communities.