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Strategies for empowering the local people to participate in forest restoration

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Abstract

Within various parts of the tropics and temperate regions, there are increasingly more efforts towards reforestation or restoration. Interventions in the tropics however, have not adequately addressed the needs of local people compelling them to degrade forests. We conducted a study in and around Mabira Forest Reserve in Uganda with the aim of assessing locally proposed restoration techniques and conditions for empowering local people to raise their willingness to participate in forest restoration practices. We specifically set out to; (i) identify proposed techniques to restore the degraded forests, and (ii) determine the pre-conditions for supporting local people’s participation in restoration activities. Data were collected using individual semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and participatory forest surveys. The findings show that the local people mainly engaged in practices that address their needs concurrently. The most reported practices include: planting trees on farm, enrichment tree planting in the forest, control of soil erosion, and control of invasive alien species. The main pre-conditions for their participation in forest restoration is assurance for more access to forest resources. The efficiency of local people in restoration will be enhanced by strengthening their capacity for collaborative forest management, raising their awareness on restoration, building their capacity, as well as continuous monitoring by forest managers.

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Acknowledgments

Funding for this study was provided by the European Commission through the project ‘Forest Restorationin degraded forest landscapes of Eastern Africa and Indian Ocean Islands (FOREAIM), within the FP6 framework (International co-operation-developing countries INCO-DEV, Contract INCO-CT-2005-510790). We thank the local people living in the village enclaves of Mabira Forest for co-operating and the National Forestry Authority for granting us permission each time we needed to access the forest. We are grateful to Madeleine Mutel who provided comments to improve the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Forestry Biodiversity and Tourism, Makerere University Kampala, P.O. Box 7062, Kampala, Uganda

    Charles Galabuzi & Gerald Eilu

  2. Department of Extension and Innovations, Makerere University, P.O. Box 7062, Kampala, Uganda

    Lucy Mulugo

  3. Botany Department, Makerere University, P.O. Box 7062, Kampala, Uganda

    Esezah Kakudidi

  4. Department of Environmental Management, Makerere University, P.O. Box 7062, Kampala, Uganda

    John Robert Stephen Tabuti

  5. CIRAD, UMR Innovation, 34398, Montpellier, France

    Nicole Sibelet

  6. CATIE, Apartado Postal 7170 Turrialba, 30501, Turrialba, Costa Rica

    Nicole Sibelet

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  1. Charles Galabuzi
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  2. Gerald Eilu
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  3. Lucy Mulugo
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  4. Esezah Kakudidi
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  5. John Robert Stephen Tabuti
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  6. Nicole Sibelet
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Correspondence to Charles Galabuzi.

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Galabuzi, C., Eilu, G., Mulugo, L. et al. Strategies for empowering the local people to participate in forest restoration. Agroforest Syst 88, 719–734 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10457-014-9713-6

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