Industrial forest plantations in Uganda: Local adjacent community perspectives
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Date
2017
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Journal of Sustainable Forestry
Abstract
Industrial forest plantations are both hailed and vilified for their
socio-economic effects on local communities. As such, we posed
the following questions: (1) what opportunities do industrial forest
plantations bring to local communities? and (2) what benefits are lost
with the establishment of industrial forest plantations?
Households neighboring industrial forest plantations in five villages
of mid-western Uganda were surveyed. A large majority of the respondents
(92.6%) stated that they had benefited from forest plantations,
while a minority (7.4%) stated they did not. Fuelwood and employment
were the most mentioned benefits. Approximately 47.9% of
respondents stated that they had lost certain benefits due to the
establishment of industrial forest plantations, while 52.1% stated they
lost no benefits. Occupation, the number of people in a household and
the length of residence in the area influenced responses on whether
participants had lost certain benefits.
Access to land was the most mentioned (82.2%) benefit lost due to
industrial forest plantations. The study supports the notion that industrial
forest plantations can provide certain benefits in the initial years of
establishment but may also deny local communities historically established
customary access and user land rights. Local livelihoods should
be integrated into forest plantations management plans.
Description
Keywords
Forest adjacent communities, Forest plantations, Land rights, Livelihoods
Citation
Patrick Byakagaba & Ruth Muhiirwe (2017) Industrial forest plantations in Uganda: Local adjacent community perspectives, Journal of Sustainable Forestry, 36:4, 375-387, DOI: 10.1080/10549811.2017.1310048