The Impacts Of Collaborative Forest Management On The Livelihoods Of Forest Adjacent Communities, Of Echuya Central Forest Reserve, Kabale-Kisoro, Uganda.

ABSTRACT

The study of the impacts of collaborative forest management on the livelihoods of forest adjacent communities was conducted in the nine parishes surrounding Echuya Central Forest Reserve located in the districts of kabale & Kisoro in Uganda with the objective of finding out the activities of Collaborative Forest Management, benefits to the Forest Adjacent Communities, the challenges faced in implementation and to establish strategies to cop up with the challenges of Collaborative Forest Management. The response was sourced from 100 key informants who were selected through simple random sampling and purposive non random sampling techniques. Questionnaires and interview guides were used to collect the primary data from the respondents. The study observed that formation of Collaborative Forest Management groups and community

tree planting were the major activities being carried out and the other prominent activities included forest rehabilitation, community capacity building trainings, joint forest protection, regulated harvest of forest resources and promotion of agroforestry. The major benefits of Collaborative Forest Management included biodiversity conservation, domestication of forest resources on farmlands, decline in illegal forest encroachment, livelihood improvement and increased social

responsibility. Among the challenges facing the implementation of were Collaborative Forest

Management conflict of interest among the stakeholders, insufficient funding for Collaborative Forest Management activities, lack of an equitable mechanism for benefit sharing, cross border illegalities and continued encroachment, and lack of a forest management plan and the established strategies included the need to develop an equitable benefit sharing mechanism, raising long-term

funding for Collaborative Forest Management activities, resolving conflicts amongst the

stakeholders, dialoging to solve cross border issues and developing a forest management plan. In general Collaborative Forest Management is an efficient and effective approach to attaining sustainable management of Echuya Central Forest Reserve if all the emerging challenges are to be dealt with.