ORYX VOL 31 NO 4 OCTOBER 1997 Planning conservation areas in Uganda's natural forests Peter Howard, Tim Davenport and Fred Kigenyi In the late 1980s the Ugandan Government decided to dedicate a fifth (3000 sq km) of the country's 15,000-sq-km forest estate to management as Strict Nature Reserves (SNRs)for the protection of biodiversity. The Forest Department subsequently undertook a 5-year programme of biological inventory and socio- economic evaluation to select appropriate areas for designation. Sixty-five of the country's principal forests (including five now designated as National Parks) were systematically evaluated for biodiversity, focusing on five 'indicator' taxa (woody plants, birds, small mammals, butterflies and large moths). A scoring system was developed to compare and rank sites according to their suitability for nature reserve establishment and 11 key sites were identified, which, when combined with the country's 10 national parks, account for more than 95 per cent of Uganda's species. In order to satisfy multiple-use management objectives, the Man and the Biosphere model of reserve design is being applied at each forest, by designating a centrally located core area as SNR, with increasingly intensive resource use permitted towards the periphery of each reserve and adjacent rural communities. Background (plant 'kingdoms') than any other country in the continent (White, 1983). Much of this bio- Straddling the equator between "Zaire and diversity is concentrated in the nation's Kenya, Uganda is a comparatively small land- forests, where it is at risk from encroachment, locked country of some 241,139 sq km, of mismanagement and conflicting land-uses. which one-fifth is inland water. Despite its modest size, the country encompasses a great variety of habitats, including deciduous Protected areas in Uganda Acacia-Commiphora bush, lowland evergreen rain forest, montane forest, snow-clad moun- Three principal categories of protected area tain peaks, open water and swamps. This di- are recognized in Uganda: National Parks, versity can be attributed to the country's Game Reserves (recently renamed as Wildlife location in a zone of overlap between ecosys- Reserves) and Forest Reserves. All support tems typical of East African savannah and predominantly unmodified natural systems Central African rain forest (Howard, 1991), and are legally protected against any human and altitudes ranging from below 600 m at the settlement, cultivation or livestock grazing. bottom of the Rift Valley to over 5000 m at the Many have, nevertheless, suffered from un- top of the Rwenzori Mountains. Uganda ranks controlled hunting and /or selective removal second in Africa (and ninth in the world) for of important timber trees, particularly over its mammalian diversity, has more than half of the past two decades (Kayanja and Douglas- the birds and a third of the butterflies listed for Hamilton, 1989; Howard, 1991). Most of the the continent (Howard, 1991; Pomeroy, 1993; game and forest reserves were designated Davenport and Matthews, 1995), and a higher during the first half of this century, when proportion of Africa's plant phytochoria Uganda was under British Protectorate © 1997 FFI, Oryx, 31 (4), 253-264 253 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.34.90, on 30 Sep 2021 at 09:25:18, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-3008.1997.d01-124.x P. HOWARD ETAL. administration. The game reserves were estab- with 20 per cent designated as Strict Nature lished to protect large savannah mammals for Reserves (SNRs) and 30 per cent as low- hunting and cropping, while the forest re- impact-use Buffer Zones. The remaining 50 serves were set up to protect fragile mountain per cent of the estate is to be managed primar- catchments, and to provide timber and other ily for the sustained supply of quality tropical forest products. The original designation of hardwoods and other forest products. These many of these areas was made possible by broad allocations are to be achieved by apply- land clearance associated with sleeping sick- ing the principles embodied in the Man and ness epidemics in the early part of the century the Biosphere concept of reserve design, in (Hamilton, 1984; Rogers and Randolph, 1988; which management zones are defined around Wasawo and Bushara, 1989). The first national a totally protected core (SNR), with zones of parks (Murchison Falls and Queen Elizabeth) increasingly intensive use located towards the followed in the 1950s, through redesignation periphery of each reserve (Batisse, 1985; and consolidation of former game reserves, Howard, 1991). The 20-30-50 per cent allo- where particular concentrations of 'charis- cations are broad national objectives, which matic mega-fauna' and other attractions pro- can be achieved by designating particular re- vided a basis for tourism development. serves, or parts of reserves, to particular uses, The Forest Department's jurisdiction covers according to each site's characteristics. about 15,000 sq km of land in about 700 forest It is important that decisions concerning reserves scattered across the country (of which land allocation are implemented on the basis about 3000 sq km now have dual status as of a comprehensive knowledge of the re- Forest Reserve and National Park). More than sources under consideration within each re- two-thirds of Uganda's vegetation types (as serve. However, prior to this programme very described by Langdale-Brown et ah, 1964) are few data were available on the suitability of represented in these reserves, including forest, different areas for particular uses, and infor- woodland and open savannah communities. mation on the biodiversity value of Uganda's The reserves are managed to satisfy a variety forests was extremely limited. Species lists of of purposes including: the protection of fragile selected plant and animal taxa have been com- environments such as mountain catchments; piled for a number of sites, but these have provision of environmental services; protec- generally arisen incidentally as a result of tion of biodiversity; production of timber and other ecological investigations. Thus it was other forest products; ecotourism; and meet- considered important to collect new field data ing the subsistence needs of local human com- on the biological values of the various reserves munities (Howard and Davenport, 1996). A so that objective comparisons could be made few forest nature reserves were established in and priorities established for the selection of the larger forests during the 1950s, although it the new nature reserves. is now evident, with the development of con- servation science and the benefit of hindsight, that these were not fully representative and Methods were too small to remain viable in the long- term. Clearly, considerably larger areas were An unparalleled programme of biological in- in need of preservation. ventory work was undertaken by the Forest Department between 1991 and 1995. With so many reserves in Uganda and the usual Rationale financial and technical constraints, it would have been impossible to investigate all sites, Against this background, a decision was taken so a decision was taken to survey (1) those by the Ugandan Government towards the end areas most likely to sustain viable populations of the 1980s to manage 50 per cent of the forest of most species in the long term (namely the estate primarily for environmental protection, larger reserves exceeding 50 sq km), and (2) 254 © 1997 FFI, Oryx, 31 (4), 253-264 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.34.90, on 30 Sep 2021 at 09:25:18, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-3008.1997.d01-124.x PLANNING CONSERVATION AREAS IN UGANDA'S NATURAL FORESTS ,17 15 200 Kilometres 1 Mt Elgon 18 South Busoga 35 Itwara 51 Bwezigola - 3unaa 2 Mt Rwenzori 19 Bwindi 36 Aswa River 52 Kasana - Kasamby a 3 Budongo 20 Sango Bay 37 Kabuika - Maj 53 Opit 4 Kalinzu - Maramagambo 21 Mor.:ngole 38 Kazooba 54 Nsowe 5 Kibale 22 Timu 39 Era 55 Echuya 6 Moroto 23 Kagombe 40 Maruzi 56 Mafuga 7 Labwor Hills 24 Rom 41 Kijanabolola 57 West Bugwe 8 N>angea - Napore 25 Kasagala 42 Wiceri 58 Igwe - Luvunya 9 Bugoma 26 Kilak 43 Kapimpini 59 Kisangi 10 Kadam 27 Luunga 44 Kamusenene 60 Mpanga 11 Kasyoha - Kitomi 28 Bukaleba 45 Zoka 61 Mpigi Archipelago 12 Ml, Kei 29 Nam'-vasa 46 Mujuzi 62 Sesse Islands 13 Mabira 30 Kibeka 47 Lwala 63 Zika 14 Agoro - Agu 31 Taala 48 Matin 64 Jubiya 15 Semliki 32 Rwoho 49 Ogih 65 Lokung 16 Napak 34 Wabisi - Wajala 50 Kitechura 66 Mukono Archipelago 17 Otzi (Forest 33 has not been sampled) Figure 1. Map of Uganda showing the location of the 65 forests investigated during the inventory programme. ) 1997 FFI, Oryx, 31 (4), 253-264 255 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.34.90, on 30 Sep 2021 at 09:25:18, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-3008.1997.d01-124.x P. HOWARD ETAL. any smaller reserve in which a particular veg- was to compile as complete a species list as etation type was uniquely represented. possible for each site. Conservation priorities Reserves qualifying under the second of these could then be established by comparing sites criteria were identified at the project planning on the basis of species richness, diversity, stage, when a 'gap analysis' (Scott et al, 1993) rarity and complementarity, using directly was carried out to assess the extent to which comparable datasets.