The Political Economy of Conservation at Mount Elgon, Uganda: Between Local Deprivation, Regional Sustainability, and Global Public Goods

Vedeld, Paul; Cavanagh, Connor Joseph; Pétursson, Jón Geir; Nakakaawa, Charlotte; Moll, Ricarda; Sjaastad, Espen

doi:10.4103/0972-4923.191155

Cited by 28 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 38 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This has led to ongoing conflicts and legal proceedings between local communities and authorities, particularly the Uganda Wildlife Authority, over park boundaries, land tenure and human rights violations. These have been particularly acute among the Bagisu and Sabiny ethnic groups, including the Benet, who claim ancestral connections to specific lands around Mount Elgon [91]. Issues were exacerbated through a carbon forestry scheme established in 1992, the Uganda Wildlife Authority-Forests Absorbing Carbon Emissions (UWA-FACE) project, which aimed to reforest 25,000 hectares of degraded land within the newly-established park boundaries.…”

Section: Case Study Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Norm Entrepreneurs Sidestep REDD+ in Pursuit of Just and Sustainable Forest Governance

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper explores the dissonance between conceptions of justice among forest-adjacent communities and their representation in global forest policies, a persistent barrier to delivering just sustainability. We empirically track justice claims of rural villagers upwards through specific intermediaries or 'justice brokers': civil society, state, or private sector actors operating at local to international levels, who navigate different institutions to advance various social and ecological interests. We draw on interviews with 16 intermediaries in each of Nepal and Uganda and find that recognition of local values and practices such as customary tenure systems are key justice concerns of forest-adjacent communities in each country. However, intermediaries perceive a low likelihood of advancing those claims through national or international climate and forest policy debates, such as REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), in large part because deliberations on justice are subordinated to concerns such as carbon accounting and arrangements for distributing monetary benefits. This suggests these policy processes must be modified to offer potential for transformational pathways. Intermediaries who pursued recognition justice issues developed innovative tactics in alternative forums. These 'norm entrepreneurs' adopted a suite of complementary strategies to attain influence, including: (1) formation of associations at the grassroots level; (2) media and advocacy campaigns through national coalitions to reach powerful international donors, and; (3) drawing on international support networks for advice, training and to influence national government. In both Uganda and Nepal these strategies were evidenced to enhance recognition for local values and practices.

show abstract

Section: Case Study Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Norm Entrepreneurs Sidestep REDD+ in Pursuit of Just and Sustainable Forest Governance

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Mount Elgon was first gazetted in 1929 as a forest reserve, for its role as a watershed and for timber [67]. It was modified in 1993 to a national park status [47] and designated as a UNESCO Man and Biosphere Reserve in 2005.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Estimations of evictions were as many as 300,000 people [74]. Conflicts with managing authorities remain [67], due to high population density, scarce natural resources, and a largely poor population highly dependent on agriculture.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysing and Applying Stakeholder Perceptions to Improve Protected Area Governance in Ugandan Conservation Landscapes

Omoding¹,

Walters²,

Andama³

et al. 2020

Land

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Given the diversity of active institutions and stakeholders in a landscape, and the difficulties in ensuring inclusive decision-making, evaluating landscape governance can help surface and address underlying issues. In the context of two protected area landscapes in Uganda, where landscape approaches are being implemented through a wider project on landscape governance, we analyse stakeholder perceptions of inclusive decision-making and then use this evaluation to stimulate dialogue amongst stakeholder groups in each landscape. We ask, how can capturing, analysing, and collaboratively applying people’s perceptions address inclusive decision-making in landscape governance? We collected and analysed perceptions using SenseMaker®, a software package that enables analysis of micronarratives (stories) from the field based on how respondents classify their own stories, using triads, dyads, stones, and multiple-choice questions. This self-categorisation by the respondent reduces bias in the analysis and allows the micronarrative to be cross-examined in a variety of ways when analysed using Sensemaker. This analysis created an integrated view of the stakeholder’s perceptions about inclusive decision-making in landscape governance. The results show large portions of the respondents feel their voices are neglected, and management of the landscape is poor in Mount Elgon, while in Agoro-Agu, it is the opposite trend. During a community feedback process, reasons for these trends were discussed and solutions proposed. Some of the underlying factors include historical relationships with park authorities and displacement during park creation. To more precisely answer our research question, one could have extended stays in the communities studied in these landscapes, using ethnographic methods including interviews and participant observation; nonetheless, our method, including the feedback process, was an innovative and important way to confront our findings with the informants directly and foster collaborative action. We conclude that understanding people’s perceptions, including through participatory feedback, can significantly inform and improve management decisions, help resolve conflicts, and facilitate dialogue between different stakeholders in the landscape.

show abstract

“…This is partly achievable through challenging the persistence of fortress, neoprotectionist and other top-down forms of conservation, and through a recognition that conservation is deeply rooted in (human, non-human and more-than-human) senses of place:''(a 'multispecies assemblages'), lives of humans and other species are intertwined biologically, culturally and politically'' (Aisher and Damodaran 2016:293). This calls ''for deep relational analyses of human interactions with other life forms by focusing attention among others on multispecies histories, and forms of knowledge rooted in place'' (Aisher and Damodaran 2016:293;Karlsson 2015;Vedeld et al 2016). On the contrary, an increase in hunting activities resulting from an influx of outsiders into the area would instead lead to the depletion of forest resources.…”

Section: The Great Hunting Expedition and Environmental Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Fortress conservation, wildlife legislation and the Baka Pygmies of southeast Cameroon

Pemunta

2018

GeoJournal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The indigenous Baka Pygmies of southeast Cameroon depend mainly on environmental incomes for their livelihoods, usually hunting and gathering and the sustainable use of their ecological systems. They are at the verge of profound political, socioeconomic, and environmental transformations orchestrated by modern state laws regulating hunting and international development actors and agencies whose development vision expressed through conservation often underlie a contradiction with their way of life. This ethnographic study aims to document the dynamics of the institution of the great hunting expedition among the Baka. An interplay between the overexploitation of forestry resources, the creation of protected areas (fortress conservation), the full protection of certain classes of large mammals, the use of specific tools forbidden by existing forestry legislation and the ruthless behaviour of 'eco-guards' have led to changes in the organization of the great hunting expedition. To better address the socio-cultural aspects of biodiversity conservation and consequently strengthen the legislation regulating the wildlife sector in the country, conservation stakeholders must be conscious of the multiple entanglements between human and other life forms and the ecology of hunting. This suggests the need for a rights-based approach to conservation that recognizes the entanglement of 'multispecies assemblages' and respects indigenous land rights.

show abstract

The Political Economy of Conservation at Mount Elgon, Uganda: Between Local Deprivation, Regional Sustainability, and Global Public Goods

Cited by 28 publications

References 38 publications

Norm Entrepreneurs Sidestep REDD+ in Pursuit of Just and Sustainable Forest Governance

Norm Entrepreneurs Sidestep REDD+ in Pursuit of Just and Sustainable Forest Governance

Analysing and Applying Stakeholder Perceptions to Improve Protected Area Governance in Ugandan Conservation Landscapes

Fortress conservation, wildlife legislation and the Baka Pygmies of southeast Cameroon

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About