Sustainable Human-Wildlife Conflict Management Strategies Around Busitema Central Forest Reserve, Eastern Uganda

Abstract

The study aimed at establishing sustainable Human-wildlife co-existence strategies to help settle the conflicts existing between humans and wildlife living around Busitema Central Forest Reserve. To achieve this, we first examined the nature of the existing conflicts which helped us to come up with conflict-specific co-existence strategies. We used questionnaires, interviews and focused group discussions, where the information obtained was confirmed by field observations. The data was then analysed using simple descriptive statistics like percentages, means and standard deviations. Results indicated that primates (baboons and monkeys) dominated the conflicting list of wildlife with humans followed by rodents while carnivores were the least reported. Crop raiding (100%), livestock and poultry predation (36%) were the most dominant conflicts reported posed to man while habitat destruction (40%) and road accidents (26%) were the biggest conflict man has posed on wildlife. Equitable compensation (10±0.0) and community involvement in conservation (8±1.4) dominated the sustainable Human-Wildlife co-existence strategies suggested by local communities. It was concluded that, involvement of local communities in wildlife conservation should be prioritized and areas surrounding the protected forest area should be planted with crops such as tea and trees such as eucalyptus (woodlots) that are not affected by wildlife but rather are enhancers of wildlife habitats