Dynamics of forest cover conversion in and around Bwindi impenetrable forest, Southwestern Uganda

Abstract

Forest cover has been converted to agricultural land use in and around the protected areas of Uganda. The objectives of this study were; to examine the dynamics of forest cover change in and around Bwindi impenetrable forest between 1973 and 2010 and to identify the drivers of forest cover change. The trend in forest cover change was assessed by analyzing a series of orthorectified landsat imageries of 1973, 1987 and 2001 using unsupervised and supervised classification. Land use/cover map for 2010 was reconstructed by analyzing 2001 image, validated and/or reconstructed by ground truthing, use of secondary data and key informant interviews. A series of focused group discussions and key informant interviews were also used to identify drivers of land use/cover change. Policies and institutional arrangements that could have affected forest cover change for the studied time period were also identified. Results showed that protected forest and woodlot in unprotected area had declined by 7.8% and 70.7% respectively as small scale farming and tea plantations had increased by 13.9% and 78.3% respectively between 1973 and 2010. The conversions were attributed to land use pressure due to population growth, change in socio-economic conditions and institutional arrangements. The severe loss of woodlot outside the protected area not only poses a potential threat to the protected forest but also calls for intervention measures if efforts to mitigate climate change impacts are to be realized. @JASEM

Soil Fertility in relation to Landscape Position and Land Use/Cover Types: A Case Study of the Lake Kivu Pilot Learning Site

“…In Rwanda a relative increment of 19% was observed for the same period on the expense of open broadleaved trees (eucalyptus). The relative change observed in small-scale farming area across the LK PLS is attributed to demographic pressure [44,45] and poor management of the already cultivated lands accelerating land degradation and recently observed negative effects of eucalyptus trees on soils of Bufundi [31,34] The trend in land-use/cover in the three benchmarks watershed is similar to that observed in the region [44,46,47]. Small-scale farming had significantly increased to the expenses of the other land-use/cover in the three sites.…”

Protected Apes, Unprotected Forest: Composition, Structure and Diversity of Riverine Forest Fragments and Their Conservation Value in Uganda

“…Following removal of big trees, forest land is cleared for subsistence and/or commercial agriculture. This process is underway throughout the Budongo-Bugoma landscape [31], and is representative of broader land-use changes taking place around large protected areas across western Uganda [4,8,75,76].…”

Carbon sequestration potential of East African Highland Banana cultivars (Musa spp. AAA-EAHB) cv. Kibuzi, Nakitembe, Enyeru and Nakinyika in Uganda

“…This is in agreement with previous reports showing that banana plants not only invest carbon into the soil through nodal roots that arise from the corm but also over time during photosynthesis as carbon moves from the vegetative canopy into the soil (Turner, 2003;Hairiah et al, 2010). Results from this study show that EAHB are capable of sequestering higher carbon stocks in the soil compared to the stocks estimated in Eucalyptus dominated woodlots in Eastern Uganda at 55.4 Mgha -1 (Sirike, 2012), tea plantations at 69 ± 10.0Mgha -1 and the natural forest at 68.6 ± 14 Mgha -1 in South Western Uganda (Twongyirwe, 2010;Twongyirwe et al, 2013). However, soil carbon stocks estimated from EAHB plantations were similar to that obtained in Patula pine plantations of Columbia at 87.2 Mgha -1 (Juan et al, 2010).…”