At a recent meeting with district leaders at Hotel Margherita in Kasese, President Yoweri Museveni, while responding to the issue of re-settling the Basongora pastoralists returnees from DR Congo, made it clear that government will not degazzette any part of Queen Elizabeth National Park or any other National Park in Uganda because of their conservation and tourism value.
The Basongora returnees are currently camped in part of Queen Elizabeth National Park and had hoped that the President would direct Parliament to degazette part of the National Park for their re-settlement.
This kind of support from the highest office in the land and the recognition of the important role the wildlife plays in the development of our economy is good news for us who work tirelessly in managing and protecting the country’s wildlife resources. A week before the President’s visit, the Minister of State for Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities, Serapio Rukundo, met the Basongora pastoral community in the park. Rukundo implored them to reduce their cattle populations to manageable levels and send their children to school taking advantage of UPE and USE as part of efforts to find an amicable solution to the problem of land shortages.
The President has rightly observed on several occasions, including at the opening of the 5th International Primatology Society Congress at Entebbe on June 26, 2006, that our wildlife resources are integral to Uganda’s tourism industry, with over 90 percent of the visitors to this country going to at least one or two national parks.
For the record, Queen Elizabeth National Park is one of the most popular Protected Areas among local and international tourists and during the peak seasons like now (June – September) it records 100 percent occupancy. The national park is also the second biggest in Uganda with large wildlife populations that constantly move between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In addition to the beautiful scenery, there is a wide variety of wildlife species in this national park that include leopards, hyenas, lions, buffaloes, kobs, elephants, warthogs, waterbucks and chimpanzee. A wildlife census carried out in July 2006 in Queen Elizabeth National Park showed marked increases (recovery) in populations of different wildlife species as the table below shows.
This recovery was only made possible by the vigilant implementation of sound conservation policies that have seen a steady reversal of the 1980s situation to the current more promising situation.
The presence of human settlements in Queen Elizabeth National Park has not only jeopardised the health and population of the wild animals especially the carnivorous and omnivorous animals that are routinely poisoned by the communities, it has also affected the provision of tourism services in the national park.
At national level the recovery of wildlife populations is equally promising as shown in the table on the right.
Using 1996 data as a benchmark, except for Impala and Uganda Kob all other animal populations as of 2005 either show a recovery or are actually stable (no significant increase or decline) in a 10-year period. It can be seen from the table above that there have been drastic decreases in wildlife populations from the 1960s numbers. It is also important to note that the size of the Protected Areas has remained the same and can therefore accommodate the same numbers as we had in the 1960s.
While wildlife populations have plummeted, human population has on the other hand exponentially increased. In 1969 there was just about nine million and today the estimate is 26 million. There has, therefore, been agitation for degazettement of wildlife protected areas for human settlement and other land use practices in the guise of socio-economic development. Yet wildlife immensely contributes to the livelihoods of many Ugandans and to the national economy, through ecological/environmental services like rain, water, air, soil stability; direct extraction for medicines, food and building materials; employment in the wildlife and tourism sector and hard currency through tourism.
In the 1960s up to early 1970s wildlife based tourism was the leading foreign exchange earner ahead of coffee, cotton and livestock products. Since 2002 again wildlife-based tourism is the leading foreign exchange earner followed by fish, which can arguably be classified as wildlife. To illustrate the importance of wildlife and its contribution to the national economy, I will use the gorilla, buffalo and elephant. Every individual gorilla in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park earns Uganda US $100,000 (sh180m) per year and creates employment for 30 people. Which individual Ugandan living near a National Park can raise that amount of money? Each buffalo contributes $20,000 (sh36m) and elephant $30,000 (sh54m). None of our indigenous livestock or even cross breeds livestock can contribute that much. A cow producing 20 litres of milk per day would yield at most only sh11m, all factors held constant.
As tourist numbers increase, the potential for the wildlife to earn more is tenfold, as we have seen from our neighbours in Kenya and Tanzania, while production from other sectors can not stretch as much. Indeed in recognition of this enormous potential and current earnings the people of Kisoro in 2002 donated 4.2 square kilometres of land to Bwindi National Park despite the high human population in the area.
It is sad to note that in other areas notably Mt. Elgon, even the local leaders are encouraging local communities to encroach on the national park land as they marry second and third wives and produce 15 to 20 children, in spite of growing tourist numbers to the area including cross-boarder tourism (tourists are now crossing from Kenya to Uganda on top of the mountain and vice-versa under a program implemented under the East African Community, with technical support from IUCN – the World Conservation Union).
An increasing human population against a finite land area would not be a problem as again our President has correctly asserted if only we could apply available and appropriate technology and science in our production means and change some of our extravagant/destructive cultural practices like everybody having to build individual houses on fragmented pieces of land and concrete graves/tombs even after death.
In Latin (South) America, Asia and China where the human population has more than quadrupled in the last 50 years there has been equally big economic gains made while positive steps were made towards conservation. Most (over 80%) of their human populations live in cities and are involved in adding value to their products while the countryside is for production and conservation of their natural resources. In Uganda over 90% of our populations are rural and hardly any value is added to our products thus the clamour for more land and the cry for degazettement of Protected Areas, be they parks, forests or wetlands.
With the strongly supportive voice of the President, for us in conservation shall use the policy and legislative frame work and the tools of work at our disposal to zealously do our job and contribute to the national economy and poverty reduction through nature conservation in partnership with other stakeholders. Conserving for Generations.
