Community activities on protected areas: a case study of mount Elgon national park, Uganda;

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Date
2012-09
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Publisher
Kampala International University, School of Engineering and Applied Science
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
Description
a research report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of bachelor of science in environment management of Kampala international university.
Keywords
Community activities, mount Elgon national park
Citation