Effects Of Transaction Costs On Community Forest Management In Uganda

Uganda has 4.9 million hectares of forest resources, which cover 24 percent of the land area. Most of these forests resources have been controlled under customary tenure without clear management schemes. However, in recent years Collaborative Forest Management (CFM) has come to see local communities cooperating with government or its agencies in the management of gazetted forest reserves. Organized in Communal Land Associations (CLA), community members enter into a Memoranda of Understanding/Agreement with the National Forestry Authority (NFA) to manage part or whole of a gazetted forest reserve. In Budongo Sub-county in Masindi District (Western Uganda), a Community Based Organization (CBO), the Budongo Community Development Organization (BUCODO) working with the NFA has piloted CLAs as institutions through which communities can manage their forest resources. Presently little empirical evidence exists that points to the effects transaction costs in Community Forestry (CF) play in retarding the success of such initiatives. This study sought to: Examine the level of transaction costs households faced in community forestry and to gauge their effects on community forestry initiatives; and determine the distribution of community forestry transaction costs across households with diverse socio-economic characteristics and gauge their effects on community forestry initiatives.

Community forestry is an expanding model of forest management around the world. Over a quarter of forests in developing countries are now owned by or assigned to communities and there is a growing community forestry movement in developed countries such as Canada and the USA. There is, however, no economic theory of community forestry and no systematic treatment of the potential economic advantages of promoting Community forestry in developed countries. As a result much of the policy debate over forest management and forest tenure rests on confused and often erroneous views held by policy makers and encouraged by the dominant forestry industry. The Economic Theory of Community Forestry aims to address this gap and provides the tools for understanding community forestry movement as an alternative form of ownership that can mobilize community resources and encourage innovation. It uses a wide range of economic principles to show how community forestry can be economically superior to conventional forestry; provides examples from Canadian practice; and discusses the regulatory regime that policy makers must put in place to benefit from community forestry. This book will be of interest to policy makers, activists, community forestry managers and members, foresters and forestry students.

Examines whether forest management regimes in the region have actually provided communities with sufficient economic benefits to make them willing and able to conserve and to use sustainable forest resources in the course of their production and consumption activities.

Key messages Participatory Prospective Analysis (PPA) proved to be effective for encouraging collective reflection to identifythreats to forest tenure security as well as to develop ways to improve local people's tenure security over forests in Kibaale district, Uganda. A PPA exercise carried out in 2015/16 brought together stakeholders from district government, civil society, local communities and the Bunyoro kingdom, as well as politicians, to discuss the past, present and future of forest tenure security in the district. As the forest and land sectors are male dominated, a separate women-only PPA workshop was organized to gather women’s perspectives.While the mixed group and women-only PPA stakeholders identified four common key influences on forest tenure security, they also each identified four unique influences. Commonly identified influences were: the role played by politicians; the implementation capacity of key stakeholders (particularly at district level); the implementation and enforcement of forest laws and policies; and population dynamics, including the influx of migrants. Influences identified only by the women’s workshop were: access to adequate funding for reform implementation; the level of security in the district; and the role of NGOs, particularly those working to advance and defend women's forest tenure rights. Influencing factors identified only by the mixed group included: the knowledge, attitudes and participation of local people in implementing forest tenure reforms; and the extent of forest tenure rights actually granted to communities.Stakeholders identified two desirable and three undesirable scenarios to envision the potential forest tenure security situation in Kibaale in 2025. Desirable scenarios involved participatory formulation and implementation of forest policies and plans; clear tenure rights; adequate funding for implementing forest tenure reforms; well-informed local communities; and corruption-free political leadership. Undesirable scenarios were characterized by insecure forest tenure rights due to immigration; and unfair enforcement of forest laws in favor of powerful, well-connected immigrants over indigenous peoples.The PPA then identified potential actions to be undertaken by different stakeholders to improve access to local forest tenure rights over the next decade. These included: the dissemination of laws, policies and technologies to communities and their political leaders; increased community involvement in resource planning and implementation (including the enforcement of rules); and the development of policies and laws to address problems caused by immigration.The women-only PPA workshop viewed major threats as being the prospect of men taking over trees that women have planted (due to discriminatory cultural practices that prevent women from owning land and trees). They also viewed the lack of funding to invest in tree planting and for acquiring their own land, lack of access to markets, political instability and limited NGO influence as factors that could undermine forest tenure security over the next decade.

This book examines the conceptual foundations of the participatory approach to local development, assesses the evidence of its efficacy, and draws key lessons for policy.