The efficacy of Buganda clan system’s pedagogy in wildlife conservation in Uganda: A case of the three indigenous counies of Buganda kingdom

Abstract

The study evaluated the efficacy of Buganda Clan system’s Pedagogy in Wildlife Conservation in Uganda: A case of the three Indigenous Counties of Buganda Kingdom. The truth immerged that, today in Buganda Kingdom, Uganda, Africa and the world over, wildlife is decreasing and terribly deteriorating at a rate unseen and unheard of before which could be addressed by the intervention of Buganda clan system’s pedagogy. A phenomenological research design in the study was employed since it focused on the commonality of lived experiences (verbatim) within a particular group or individuals, aiming to arrive at a description of the nature of the particular phenomenon. As a qualitative study, sample size of 48 from the population size of 3,392,333 people was used for the study. This was because a qualitative study is supposed to have a large enough sample size to uncover a variety of opinions, but limited the size at the point of saturation which occurs when the collection of new data does not shed any further light on the issue under investigation. Findings showed that, Buganda’s traditional wildlife conservational knowledge based on totemism, taboos and people’s traditional spirituality was very effective in wildlife conservation, and the same knowledge is still applicable and relevant in nature conservation today. A ‘Culturally Based Conservation Model (CBCM) was arrived at aiming at amending the existing conservation policies by the Government of Uganda, integrating them with Buganda’s indigenous traditional conservation knowledge. The study therefore recommends that, environment authorities like National Environment Management authorities and (NEMA) and Uganda Wildlife authority (UWA) should work with various cultural institutions and researchers to ensure integration of the indigenous knowledge into modern conservation strategies.