Pam Jagger, Indiana University, US: Negotiating Livelihoods and Sustainability after Uganda's Forest Sector Governance Reform

This has been an exciting year to work on forestry related issues in Uganda – controversy over the sale of one quarter of a biodiverse forest reserve to large scale sugar producers, and the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of State Meeting which has led to a massive construction boom has everyone talking about trees! My research has examined the case of a major forest sector decentralization reform undertaken by the Ugandan government in 2003 which changed the ownership and management of 85% of Uganda's forests. Specifically it addresses three research questions:

• How has the governance reform that shifted forest management from the Forest Department to the National Forest Authority (NFA) and the District Forest Service (DFS) affected peoples' ability to negotiate access rights to forest products?

• How has the governance reform affected the livelihoods of rural Ugandans living near forests?

• How has the governance reform affected forest cover and forest quality?

The research builds upon a study of the contribution of forests to livelihoods conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) immediately prior to the forest sector reform in 2003. The three field sites represent variable governance regimes and forest types in Uganda including: protected afromontane forest in Rwenzori National Park (managed by the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA)); privately held tropical high forest south of Bugoma Central Forest Reserve (managed by the DFS); and protected tropical high forest in Budongo Central Forest Reserve (managed by the NFA). There has been no change in the governance of the Rwenzori site; this site is used as a control group in the study. In each of the three study areas 6 communities and 180 households were visited. The total sample size is 18 communities and approximately 540 households.

(Very) Preliminary Findings

With respect to access rights to forests and specific forest products there is a lot of confusion and variation with respect to how people view their households' rights to access forest and forest products. There is also a lot of confusion within and between representatives of both the Ugandan Wildlife Authority and the National Forest Authority and the communities that they work with. In many cases, unless a clear collaborative forest management agreement has been worked out, households are negotiating access rights on an individual basis with UWA and NFA staff. This is likely leading to inequalities between households, further corruption within these organizations, and it is definitely contributing to the frequency of illegal harvesting.

Data entry from the first quarter household surveys is almost complete. This has enabled me to do some very preliminary estimates of the share of household income from forest products (Table 1). What the data indicate is that the contribution of forest products to household income has been stable in the Rwenzori field site, which is the area that did not undergo any governance reform. In the Bugoma site there has been a slight decline, and in the Budongo site a slight increase in the contribution of forests to household incomes. The decline in the Bugoma field site may be due to intensive forest clearing in that area; people have to travel farther to access forests. In the Budongo field site the increase may be due to more intensive timber harvesting by local people. In migration from conflict ridden West Nile province has brought many timber cutters to the area. Also, smallholders who had been planting tobacco shifted to timber harvesting when British American Tobacco failed to buy their crop in 2004. However, virtually all of timber harvested in the Budongo field site is illegally harvested. My feeling is that these results are too preliminary to draw any meaningful conclusions. It will be important to look at data from other quarters, and also to thoroughly clean the data.

Table 1: Share of Total Gross Household Income from Forests, 2003 and 2006

1. Bush et al. 2004. The Value of Uganda's Forests: A Livelihoods and Ecosystems Approach. Kampala,  Uganda: Wildlife Conservation Society.

2. Based upon preliminary analysis of PEN Uganda gross income data for the period July/August-September/October 2006.

Data on changes in forest cover and forest quality have not been analyzed yet. Based upon qualitative observation, both forest cover and forest quality in Rwenzori field site appear to be relatively stable. Though forest clearing is ongoing, the area cleared is relatively small, and enforcement of activities in Rwenzori Mountains National Park is very strong. In the Bugoma field site forest are being cleared at a rapid rate for agricultural production. Even during the course of the nine months the PEN study has been ongoing significant forest cover loss has been observed. Forest quality is also declining in this area due to intensive pit-sawing by migrant laborers working for large scale sawnwood producers based in Kampala. In the Budongo area forest quality is declining due to pit-sawing by households living in communities immediately adjacent to the forest. Forests outside of the Reserve are also declining with respect to cover and quality due to agricultural expansion and timber production by local people, though not as rapidly as in the Bugoma area.

Based on the preliminary findings, the general picture seems to be that the forest sector reform has had a mixed effect on local livelihoods, and has in general negatively affected forest sustainability. The findings contradict the majority of the literature on decentralization which predicts that decentralized forest sector governance leads to both improved livelihoods and the more sustainable use of forests.