Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-995ml Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T03:34:46.788Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Planning conservation areas in Uganda's natural forests

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2009

Peter Howard
Affiliation:
Ghana Wildlife Department, PO Box M239, Ministry Post Office, Accra, Ghana.
Tim Davenport
Affiliation:
WWF-Cameroon, PO Box 6776, Yaounde, Cameroon.
Fred Kigenyi
Affiliation:
Forest Department, PO Box 1752, Kampala, Uganda.
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In the late 1980s the Ugandan Government decided to dedicate a fifth (3000 sq km) of the country's 15,000-sq-km forest estate to management as Strict Nature Reserves (SNRs)for the protection of biodiversity. The Forest Department subsequently undertook a 5-year programme of biological inventory and socioeconomic evaluation to select appropriate areas for designation. Sixty-five of the country's principal forests (including five now designated as National Parks) were systematically evaluated for biodiversity, focusing on five ‘indicator’ taxa (woody plants, birds, small mammals, butterflies and large moths). A scoring system was developed to compare and rank sites according to their suitability for nature reserve establishment and 11 key sites were identified, which, when combined with the country's 10 national parks, account for more than 95 per cent of Uganda's species. In order to satisfy multiple-use management objectives, the Man and the Biosphere model of reserve design is being applied at each forest, by designating a centrally located core area as SNR, with increasingly intensive resource use permitted towards the periphery of each reserve and adjacent rural communities.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Fauna and Flora International 1997

References

Batisse, M. 1985. Action plan for biosphere reserves. Environmental Conservation, 12 (1), 1727.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davenport, T.R.B. and Matthews, R.A. 1995. A wealth of species come to light – Uganda's forest biodiversity. Swara, 18 (3), 2629.Google Scholar
Davenport, T.R.B. 1996. The Butterflies of Uganda. An Annotated Checklist. Uganda Forest Department, Kampala, Uganda.Google Scholar
Forest Department, in prep. Nature Conservation Masterplan. Uganda Forest Department, Kampala, Uganda.Google Scholar
Hamilton, A.C. 1984. Deforestation in Uganda. Oxford University Press, Nairobi, Kenya.Google Scholar
Howard, P.C. 1991. Nature Conservation in Uganda's Tropical Forest Reserves. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK.Google Scholar
Howard, P.C. and Davenport, T.R.B. (eds). 1996. Forest Biodiversity Reports. Vols. 1–33. Uganda Forest Department, Kampala, Uganda.Google Scholar
Johnson, N. 1995. Biodiversity in the Balance: Approaches to Setting Geographic Conservation Priorities. Biodiversity Support Programme, Washington DC.Google Scholar
Kayanja, F.I.B. and Douglas-Hamilton, I. 1989. The impact of the unexpected on the Uganda National Parks. In National Parks, Conservation and Development (eds McNeely, J. A. and Miller, K. R.), pp. 8793. Smithsonian Press, Washington DC.Google Scholar
Kingdon, J. 19711974. East African Mammals: An Atlas of Evolution. Academic Press, London.Google Scholar
Krebs, C.J. 1989. Species Diversity Measures. Ecological Methodology. Harper and Row, New York.Google Scholar
Langdale-Brown, I., Osmaston, H.A., and Wilson, J.G. 1964. The Vegetation of Uganda and its Bearing on Land-use. Government Printer, Entebbe.Google Scholar
Magurran, A.E. 1987. Ecological Diversity and its Measurement. Chapman and Hall, London.Google Scholar
Margules, C.R., Nicholls, A.O. and Pressey, R.L. 1988. Selecting networks of reserves to maximise biological diversity. Biological Conservation, 43, 6376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matthews, R.A., Baltzer, M.C. and Howard, P.C. 1997. New bird records for Uganda, with an addition to the East African avifauna. Scopus, 19, 119120.Google Scholar
Pomeroy, D. 1993. Centres of high biodiversity in Africa. Conservation Biology, 7 (4), 901907.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prendergast, J.R., Wood, S.N., Lawton, J.H. and Eversham, B.C. 1993. Correcting for variation in recording effort in analyses of diversity hotspots. Biodiversity Letters, 1, 3953.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogers, D.J. and Randolph, S.E. 1988. Tsetse flies in Africa: bane or boon? Conservation Biology, 2 (1), 5765.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, J.M., Davis, M., Csuti, B., Noss, R., Butterfield, B., Groves, C., Anderson, H., Caicco, S., D'Erchia, F., Edwards, T.C., Ulliman, J. and Wright, R.G. 1993. Gap analysis: a geographic approach to protection of biological diversity. Wildlife Monographs, 123, 141.Google Scholar
Soberon, J.M. and Llorente, J.B. 1993. The use of species accumulation functions for the prediction of species richness. Conservation Biology, 7 (3), 480488.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tabor, G., Johns, A. and Kasenene, J.M. 1990. Deciding the future of Uganda's tropical forests. Oryx, 24 (4), 208214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wasawo, D.P.S. and Bushara, J. 1989. Wildlife and Protected Areas. Strategic Resources Planning in Uganda. Vol. III. United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi.Google Scholar
White, F. 1983. The Vegetation of Africa. UNESCO, Paris.Google Scholar