Authors : A.C. Otieno, R.A. Kapiyo, B.O. Oindo and Buyinza Mukadasi
Abstract: Conflict of interest between the legislative and executive arms of government trickle down to institutions aligned to the executive, especially environmental bodies in developing countries with the Western democracy of periodic competitive elections. A study of 344 households engulfing South Busoga Central Forest Reserve, Mayuge district and 31 conservationist attached to the forest reserve found that the local communities were aware of the Forestry Policy 2001 but practiced the following illegalities in the forest reserve with impunity; farming, charcoal burning, settlement and indiscriminate felling of trees; the mode of evictions applied by NFA were statistically insignificant (>9.21) at df = 2 at 0.01 viz. notices, abrupt evictions, NFA using police to evict, prior consultation with encroachers, compensation arrangements prior done, resettlement of evictees assured, imprisonment, loss of estates by evictees and NFA using local council to evict. There was a very high/strong relationship between the local communities’ perceptions and lead agencies’ perception at r = 0.95, on the mode of evictions of encroachers at SBCFR, Mayuge district. Thus, given the fact that the local communities found the mode of evictions statistically insignificant this was also upheld by the lead agencies. The main impediment to effective enforcement of the Forestry Policy 2001 was the political meddling in the activity. It was therefore recommended that the minister in whose docket forestry lies should cultivate a political will amongst fellow politicians to avoid using forest estates as political hand outs, make effective eviction policy which include politicians as both decision makers and mobilizers and adopt either privatisation or collaborative forest management with both effective sensitization and participatory monitoring as the main tools for managing the forest reserve.
A.C. Otieno, R.A. Kapiyo, B.O. Oindo and Buyinza Mukadasi, 2012. Uganda National Forestry Authority and Enforcement of Forestry Policy 2001: A Case of South Busoga Forest Reserve, Mayuge District, Eastern Uganda. Environmental Research Journal, 6: 206-216.