Bråthen, S., 2008. PAPIA Report on a Field trip to Mt.ElgonNational Park February 2008

PAPIA
REPORT 2008

Prepared by: Stine Bråthen (Project Assistant)
Facultyof Forestry and Nature Conservation, MakerereUniversity

Table of content

1. Introduction

2. Main Findings

2.1 Meeting at MENPA’s headquarter in Mbale

2.2 The park’s Management strategies

2.3 Challenges pointed out by the Park’s staff

2.4 Tourist facilities

2.5 Procedures in accessing the Park

2.6 Transportation

2.7 What is already covered?

2.8 Potential research topics

3 Way forward

3.1 Tasks, focuses of researchers and master project elements

3.2 Priorities of elements and focuses for researchers and students

3.4. Status for the work in progress

4. Acknowledgement

Appendix 1: Presentation of PAPIA

Appendix 2: Beneficiaries under the revenue sharing schemes

Appendix 3: PAPIA Research Permit

Appendix 4: Total number of visitors per year

Appendix 5: Contact information of park staff

1. Introduction

The principal objective of this trip was to provide information about the PAPIA project to the regional Headquarters’ of Mt. Elgon National Park (MENP) in Mbale. To prepare the park officials for the arrival of the PhD and MA students recruited to the project. And to assess how these students can contribute to the different components of the project in terms of data collection and field work, and lastly to clarify how to proceed in accessing the Park and getting the necessary research clearance.

It was noted that the national research permit had been secured from UWA and National Council of Science and Technology. However, on arrival in Mbale, the team had to obtain the local area clearance from Mbale UWA regional office.

Conducting the fieldtrip was:

  1. Dr. Hanne Svarstad, Project leader, Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA)
  2. Dr. Buyinza Mukadasi, Responsible for the Ugandan partner institution,Faculty of Forestry and Nature Conservation at MakerereUniversity
  3. Jon Geir Petursson, PHD student,Department of International Environment and Development Studies at the NorwegianUniversity of Life Sciences
  4. Stine Bråthen, Project assistant and Peace Corps Volunteer, Faculty of Forestry and Nature Conservation at MakerereUniversity

Left to right: (1) Stine (2) Hanne (3) Jon Geir (4) Masereka, Chief Warden at MENP (5) Buyinza

In addition to the UWA office in Mbale, we visited the National Park’s information office in Budadiri, and the ForestExplorationCenter in Kapkwai. Wegot the opportunity to visitMt. Elgon Beekeeping community (MEBK) in Bugitimna situated a few kilometers outside Budadiri. MEBK is a community initiativewhich has received funding through UWA’s revenue sharing program. We also had a look at the up market tourist facilities around SipiFalls (ref. map).

2. Main Findings

2.1 Meeting at MENPA’s headquarter in Mbale

Present at the meeting, apart from PAPIA’s representatives, was the Chief Warden Mr. Masereka Augustine Johnson,Assistant warden for research and monitoring Ms. Pamela Oyella and Assistant Warden for Community Conservation Mr. Matanda Richard Godfred. Responsible for the unit of Tourism and Law enforcement was unfortunately not around that day.

The PAPIA team was welcomed and after a short introduction round a presentation of the Project was given by Dr. Buyinza. The projects main objectives were outlined and a description of future research activities involving the park and surrounding communities were outlined. A written presentation was handed over (appendix 1). It was also mentioned that students attached to the project will be arriving from August 2008.

The Chief Warden gave the team a short background of the development of the park, the Park’s main objectives, its management strategies,and he also described some of the challenges the Park is facing from the surrounding communities.

We were informed on addition to UWA policies, as there are several other important policies regarding Protected Area management in Uganda, namely:

  • Agenda 21 (Sustainable Development)
  • Article 278(1) of constitution
  • Overall national policy on PAs
  • Policies before 1990
  • Uganda Wildlife Act 1995
  • Uganda Wildlife policies 1995
  • Uganda Wildlife Statute 1996 (more public participation & Govt grants user rights to communities)
  • Uganda community conservation policy

2.2 The park’s Management strategies

According to the Chief Warden MENP’s primary conserve objective is water catchments, and in order to achieve this objective the Park management employs two principal management strategies: law enforcement and community conservation. Law enforcement involves park rangers in military style operations – patrols, raids, arrests, imprisonments, seizures and the use of state sanctioned violence. Rangers have rifles and, at times, shoot `poachers’

MENP park ranger from Budadiri

If needed, UWA staff can call in military support from Ugandan People’s Defence force (UPDF). This was actually the case when the PAPIA team visited the park. Some troops had been called in to help the rangers to patrol the park. A few weeks beforethe PAPIA team arrived a Belgian tourist was accidentally killed when Park rangers had clashed with local people deep inside the park.

Education and sensitization, out-of-park sustainable development activities, revenue sharing, and collaborative management agreements all fall under the category of community conservation.These agreements permit park neighbors to enter the Park to collect natural resources at a sustainable level. Currently, there exist 26 agreements with different communities. Usually they cover water, traditional medicines, bamboo, salt, reeds and grass. Grazing and timber extraction are typically excluded, as their extraction I is considered unsustainable by Ugandan Wildlife Authority (UWA). The revenue sharing scheme involves 29 % of incomes from the Park’s entrance fees, forwarded to local project initiatives approved by the Park. The guidelines for this consideration would be necessary for the PAPIA to get hold off. Assistant Warden for Community Conservation Mr. Matanda Richard Godfred gave the PAPIA Team a list over projects that had benefited by the Revenue Sharing Program (appendix 2).

The Park is currently working on their new management plan. It is expected be ready in June 2008.

The PAPIA team visited Mt. Elgon Bee community project benefiting from revenue sharing

2.3 Challenges pointed out by the Park’s staff

The area immediately surrounding the Park is characterized by high population densities, land scarcity, deep poverty and physical isolation. The population densities are amongst the highest in Uganda. Livelihoods in the neighbouring communities are based on intensive agricultural production from small plots, supplemented by small –scale enterprises and market activities. The Park and its resources are considered an important component of local livelihood portfolios.

Although collecting resources from the park (such as bamboo shoots and poles) is only legal in a small number of parishes that have signed collaborative management agreements, many villages near the boundary make significant illegal use of the Park.

Challenges pointed out by the management during the meeting were: depletion of natural resources within the park, firewood collection, grazing, poaching, pole/shrub cutting, cattle rustling, boundary conflicts and land claims.

One community in particular, the community of Benet, was mention as a serious challenge to the Park management. The Benet has lived on the moor land of Mount Elgon for the past 200 years and the groups maintain that they originated from an area in the park called Benet. They were evicted from the forest in the 1970s and early 80s. It is believed that it was somebody for the Benet community that was involved in the murder of the Belgian tourist.

2.4 Tourist facilities

The PAPIA team visited a few private up-market lodges at SipiFalls. Some of them were owned by people from Kampala, others were local. There are also budget lodging facilities available. Facilities within the Park is owned and run by UWA. This is mostly camping, but also a few budget alternatives. A further mapping of the sector will be necessary.

Tourist facilities around SippiFalls

2.5Procedures in accessing the Park

PAPIAs research permits for Mt.ElgonNational Park andBwindiImpenetrableNational Parkhave been attained for the period of November 2007 to December 2011 (appendix 3). The project is expected to submit a progressive report by December 2008 and a final report by December 2011. In accordance to the research permit, UWA is charging a monthly research access fee of USH 30,000 for each Ugandan researcher and US$ 100 for each foreign researcher during the research periods. Researchers have to report to the office of the Chief Wardensupon arrival for registration, payment of the research access fee and further guidance (ref. research permit). When visiting the MENP’s local information offices (i.e. Budadiri and Kapkwai),we experienced it was necessary to ask the headquarter in Mbale to inform the wardens about our arrival. A local area clearance/letter from the Chief Warden was alse required.

2.6 Transportation

The project is in the process of buying a car (Toyota RAW, 4WD) for field trip purposes. It is expected that the car will be available from August when the students are arriving. The car will be able to take a total of 5 persons. Alternative means of transportation to Mbale is the Uganda Post Bus. It is considered safe, reliably and cheap. All buses leaves from the main post office at 08.00 Monday-Saturday. Passengers are expected to report 30 minutes prior to departure. The price from Kampala to Mbale is around USH 10,000. Address: 35 Kampala Road, telephone: 041425 55 115/041 434 091 59, e-mail: , website:

2.7What is already covered?

First of all we need to map out what has already been covered by students at NORAGRIC and FFNC. There is supposed to a copy of all the dissertations produced at MakerereUniversity in the main library and is searchable in the library’s online catalog:

Jon GeirPetursson has sent a complete list to Pål Vedel to go through. Upon request Stine will be able to order copies and arrange scanning of relevant documents. This can also be done in the case of Bwindi.

2.8 Potential research topics

The following topics were discussed as potential research topics and contributions for potential students:

  • Livelihood/poverty situation in the surrounding communities
  • Positive contributions to the communities from the Park
  • Negative consequences for the communities due to the existence of the Park
  • Total income from tourist activities
  • The extent and value of private tourism initiatives/entrepreneurship around the park (i.e. the up market tourist facilities around SipiFalls
  • The collaborative agreements between the Park and communities
  • The resource use committees
  • More information about IUCN and FACE’s involvement in the Park

The individual student case elements from Mt.ElgonNational Park will include:

•Assess total income and benefits from tourism reaching settlements outside the park

•Assess total revenues generated by the park and the shares allocated to community projects

•Assess indirect benefits to local communities

•Assess the importance and potentials of forest resources in the park that can be accessed by local people.

To effectively cover the above topics, the team reflected on the following research questions:

  • Do community conservation projects contribute to poverty alleviation?
  • How big are indirect benefits from the park?
  • How do access limitations affect local livelihoods?
  • What is sum of positive and negative effects of the national park?
  • How do policy, socio-economic, and cultural factors affect poverty & poverty alleviation?

The primary sources of data were identified as:

  1. Grassroots: households living adjacent to park
  2. Intermediate: e.g. business owners, employees, NGOs
  3. Benefit dispensers: park management

3 Way forward

3.1 Tasks, focuses of researchers and master project elements

Some suggestions following a planning meeting by Buyinza and Hanne after field trip to Mount Elgon:

PAPIA’s objective: … to understand “the complex relationships between protected areas and poverty”.

Sub-goal 1: … through 4 case studies of economic and social aspects of these relationships, discourse analysis, narrative analyses and scenario building.

Sub-goal 2: “PAPIA will concentrate on the identification and examination of factors causing protected areas to contribute to poverty alleviation as well as of factors that might turn protected areas into ‘poverty traps’.”

Sub-goal 3: … identify barriers to positive connections between protected areas and poverty alleviation, examine as to whether or not they are surmountable.

See the specifications next page.
3.2 Priorities of elements and focuses for researchers and students

For many of the master student projects it will be convenient to concentrate on one element, for others the tasks may be designed across these elements: 0.Bibliography.


3.3 Project elements to follow

-Descriptions based on elements suspected to contribute substantially to explain poverty/poverty alleviation in each case.

  • Descriptions by MA students
  • In depth analyses by researchers

-Including: Analyses of institutional aspects from the lowest local level to national level (legal provisions as well as types and varieties of implementations)

-Focuses on especially interesting “cases in the cases” of conflicts that may provide insights to the PA’s impacts on poverty/local livelihoods.

-Comparisons between findings from the economic analyses with the identified discourses and narratives.

-Scenario building for two of the four NP cases.

3.4. Status for the work in progress

Elements: / The Mount Elgon case: / The Bwindi case: / Planned ready by
0 Bibliography / Bukenya / Bukenya / Aug. 08
1 Descrip. poverty/(livelihood) / Established by previous master theses or do we need a master student here? / MA project from Aug 2008: Ms. Hanifah Buaruhanga, Univ of Oslo (Superv: Hanne) / Bwindi: June 09
Mt.Elgon: ?
2 Pos contrib. - from tourism
a. Descr.
b. Multipl.
c. Contrib to poverty allev. / What has already been done by Paul and his master students?
3 Pos contrib.. – from revenue sharing
a. Descr.: Total
b. Desc. – funded projects
c. Multipl
d. Contrib to poverty allev / a. Buyinza, Stine, etc.
b. ?
c. Espen, etc.
d. /
  1. Buyinza, David, Alex M.
  2. Master project from Aug 2008: Alex M. (Superv: Tor)
  3. Espen, etc.
/ a. Aug. 08?
b. Bwindi: May 09.
4 Neg impacts – degrees and consequences of restricted access to nat. res.
a. Descriptions
b. Contributions to poverty / What has already been done by Paul and his master students? / David
Kenneth (Superv.: Espen) / June 08?
5 International discourses / MA project: Ms. Anja Sletten, Univ of Oslo (Superv: Hanne) / June 09
6 Discourse related narrative analyses / Element of David’s PhD, Tor and Hanne
Proj elements to follow

Possible themes on which articles could be written were considered;

  • Livelihoods;
  • Conflicts;
  • Job creation;
  • Multipliers; particularly job multipliers
  • Management systems; how do management systems affect the nature (e.g. kind, quantity) of benefits to the different stakeholders?
  • how much of the benefits leak out to national and international levels?
  • Cost-benefit analysis of PA management according to park management compared with the adjacent communities

The project findings will provide information on:

  • Extraction (legal or illegal) of within-park resources
  • Increased/ decreasing sustainability of resource extraction
  • Conflicts (with park, resettled people, tourists, etc.)
  • Improved / deteriorating environmental services
  • Park contribution to infrastructure development (roads, communications, etc.)
  • Job creation, business opportunities (direct or indirect)
  • Use of profits or taxes for community projects
  • Greater interaction with other people and cultures
  • Loss of property and access rights (land, resources, etc.)
  • Damage caused by wild animals (crops, livestock, etc.)

4. Acknowledgement

There are many special people to whom we owe thanks for their help in realizing this trip. We would first like to thank our hosts, UWA staff at Mbale regional Office especially Mr. A. J. Masereka, the Chief Warden, Mr. R. G. Matanda, Ag. Asst. Warden Community Partnership Development, and Ms. Pamela Oyela, Asst. Warden for research and Monitoring for the very warm reception. We also extend out gratitude to thestaff at the National Park’s information office in Budadiri, and the Forest Exploration Center in Kapkwai for all information give to us. We sincerely appreciate the valuable suggestions by the proprietors of Mt. Elgon Beekeeping Community (MEBK) in Bugitimna and those of the market tourist facilities around Sipi Falls. The whole PAPIA team is indebted to Mr. Wayne Conradie, for his valuable contribution in photographically documenting trip. Thanks also go to our experienced driver, Mr. Julius Bekunda and the staff at the Mt. Elgon Guest House, because without them, this trip would not have been possible.
Appendices

Appendix 1: Presentation of PAPIA

Appendix 2: Beneficiaries under the revenue sharing schemes

Appendix 3: PAPIA Research Permit

Appendix 4: Total number of visitors per year

Appendix 5: Contactinformation of park staff

Uganda Wildlife Authority’s Headquater in Mbale

Mt.Elgon Conservation Area

P.O. BOX 135Mbale, Uganda

Tel: +256 (0) 45331 70

E-mail:

Chief Warden

Masereka Augustine Johnson

Mob: +256 (0) 772518342

E-mail:

Assistant Warden for Community Conservation

Matanda Richard Godfred

Mob: +256 (0) 772935812

E-mail:

Assistant Warden for Research and monitoring

Pamela Oyella

Mob: + 256 (0)772964672

E-mail:

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