Community Activities On Protected Areas A Case Study Of Mount Elgon Nationalpark, Uganda

ABSTRACT

The study on man’s socio-economic activities on protected areas was carried

out on Mount Elgon national park and was specifically aimed at identifying

communities and their socio-economic activities, the impacts of these

activities on the park and the sustainable park management approaches.

The study used simple random sampling for the community members and

purposive for the knowledgeable about park management, methods of data

collection were questionnaire, interview, observation and use of available

literature.

The communities living around the park were the Bagishu, the Sebei and

the Benet. Their socio-economic activities in and around the park included

bee keeping, commercial coffee and wheat growing, hunting, pastoralism,

maize and beans growing, lumbering and bamboo collecting. The impacts of

these activities on the park were as follows; land degradation resulting into

mass wasting, soil erosion, loss of soil fertility, loss of forest generation due

to over harvesting of the forest products, damage of the growing seedlings

and shrubs by the grazing animals, poaching leading to loss of some animal

species and destruction of vegetation due to agricultural encroachment on

the park. The approaches to sustainable park management programmes

that are implemented are; resource management and protection programme

which involve programmes like park, community conservation and

development programme, Research and monitoring programme and

plantation management programme.

The study concluded that man’s socio-economic activities has numerous

negative impacts on the park and due to this, the MENP officials still face

several challenges in the management of the park. Also, though UWA has

tried to involve the surrounding communities in the management of the

park, most of communities still have negative attitudes as most of them said

that the land belongs to communities and thus they have a right to use the

resource.