This is a project initiated and implemented by the UFRIC team at Makerere University. The team aims at encouraging and enhancing the joint management of the Butto-Buvuma natural forest. Joint forest management is seen as a desirable option for encouraging community participation in forest management, and ultimately for promoting forest resource conservation and sustainability. The UFRIC team is working together with local communities living near the forest, as well as with the Forest Department who are mandated with forest resource management in Uganda. This is the first project of its kind in Uganda that actively involves a University, and is seen as a pilot project that will hopefully provide information useful for the design of programs intended to increase community involvement in forest conservation in Uganda. As a first step, local leaders of the communities at Buttobuvuma together with the UFRIC team, had the opportunity of touring and learning from a similar initiative in Babati district, Tanzania. The Babati JFM project, supported by the Forest Trees and People Program, is the first of such initiatives in East Africa
 

Forest history and ecology project:

Echuya forest, a montane forest dominated by bamboo species, lies in the Southwest corner of Uganda in the districts of Kabale and Kisoro. Its Southern boundary is also the international boundary between Uganda and Rwanda. The section of Echuya forest within Rwanda is not gazetted and has been cleared. Although the forest is a rich repository of biodiversity, very little information exists on its status and history. However, it is known that in the early 20th century, the forest was inhabited by the Batwa, a unique hunting and gathering pygmoid race that was widely considered to be inferior to other communities. Later, in the mid 20th century, a group of sedentary cultivators from Kisoro district settled in portions of the forest. This trend of events is hypothesized to have important effects on the ecology and structure of the forest; the forest was originally a bamboo forest and is now dominated by hardwoods. Hence the UFRIC research program, using a suite of multidisciplinary tools, seek to establish the following:

• the history of Echuya forest
• forest ecological dynamics
• effects of human institutions on forest ecology
• likely future ecological equilibrium of the forest under human impacts