Investing in conservation of wildlife creates impact

The Batwa, an indigenous minority group scattered in the districts of Bundibugyo, Kisoro, Kanungu, Rubanda, Kabale, and Mbarara, formerly resided in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Mgahinga Forest, and the Echuya Central Forest. Today, they are taking active steps to contribute to the country’s environmental conservation effort. Scola Tumwebaze, a programme officer for Rubanda District with the Bwindi Mgahinga Conservation Trust (BMCT), describes her ancestors’ ways of life as awesome.

“Because they lived in the forests, their main food was wild meat, fruits, and honey. They killed animals such as rhinos and baboons. The forest was their livelihood and hospital. Whenever they fell ill, they used herbs and roots as medicine,” she explains.

While the women wore leaves, the men wore hides and skins from the animals they had killed. When a member of the community died, he or she was buried in a big tree with the head hanging out. They could then move to another place in the forest. “In recent history, they began interacting with the outside world by trading firewood for maize flour and beans to supplement their diet. However, while their food began changing, they still worshipped their gods in the forests,” Tumwebaze adds.

Community involvement

In 1930, the colonial government declared the Mgahinga Forest a game sanctuary, while the Echuya Forest was gazetted as a forest reserve in 1939. In 1991, the government of Uganda gazetted both the Mgahinga and Bwindi forests as national parks, facilitating the eviction of the Batwa from the three forests. 

At that time, Joseph Safari, the chairperson of the Bwindi Reformed Poachers Association in Kanungu district, was still a hunter, poaching animals in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. “We would hunt mainly duikers because they have soft meat. The Batwa love to eat meat so we depended on the forest. Life was difficult in those days because we could hardly get the money to buy beef in the markets. Besides, the nearest market was 30 kilometres away in Butogota town,” he says. 

Duikers are medium-sized brown antelopes native to the heavily wooded areas of sub-Saharan Africa. Besides the wild meat, some engaged in cutting down trees to sell as timber. However, when they were kicked out of the forests, the Batwa had to learn how to farm. Safari is now a banana and coffee farmer. 

“Several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the government came out to help the Batwa to resettle and adapt to life outside the forests. We were encouraged to start groups and supported with training on how to cultivate crops. With time, we have helped to convince our peers to stop sneaking back into the forests to hunt,” he adds. One such NGO is the BMCT which bought 406 acres of land for the indigenous community in Kabale, Rubanda, Kisoro, and Kanungu districts. 

“BMCT has allowed the Batwa to develop the land. We are currently in the process of creating land titles. Previously, we used to build mud and wattle houses but now, we are constructing permanent houses,” Tumwebaze says. 

Several Batwa, like Joseph Niyonzima, are now successful farmers. Niyonzima is an onion farmer in Kisoro district. “We are projecting to harvest 100 bags of onions from our farm this season. We estimate that we will sell each bag at 275,000, which translates into Shs27 million. Our goal is to purchase more land for cultivation,” he says.

Nelson Guma, the chief warden of the Bwindi-Mgahinga Conservation Area, notes that while a few pockets of poaching still occurs, it is largely driven by cultural beliefs about the need for wild meat. 

“The Batwa have their strengths. They have a unique and beautiful culture and we have given them a platform to entertain tourists and tell stories about how they used to live in the forests. We have also leveraged their culture to develop a tourism product called the Batwa Forest Experience,” he explains. The Conservation Area has established a trail, complete with homesteads, that depicts the traditional way of life of the indigenous community. 

“The Batwa’s new role as cultural entertainers has reduced the pressure on the natural resources. The visitors who come to experience their culture make financial contributions, creating a viable alternative to poaching,” Guma adds. The former poachers have also been encouraged to form group and given a platform to entertain tourists, as they also encourage their peers to give up the vice.

Protecting endangered species

Tumwebaze Kyarimpa, the conservation officer at Mgahinga National Park, says sometimes, the large animals stray out of the park and damage the crops of the community members. “There is a poled stone wall separating the park and the community and previously, it was not reinforced. This meant the stones were took weak and the buffaloes could easily push them down and walk into people’s gardens. 

BMCT was supporting Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) to maintain the stone wall,” she says. With funding from the World Bank, UWA is now reinforcing the stone wall with concrete to make a strong buffer. “This has strengthened our relationship with the communities. Now communities willingly report bad elements who may want to jump over the wall and go poaching. We are lucky that the park is at the end of the community so we have isolated cases of animal killings,” Kyarimpa adds. 

Mountain gorillas and chimpanzees are a unique feature of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Gorilla tracking brings in revenue for the country and supports the livelihoods of the communities living around the national park. While poaching activities have greatly reduced, an emerging threat to animal conservation is the littering of plastic by the community and tourists. 

Guma warns of the harm caused by the waste disposal practices of the tourists and community outside the boundaries of the park, to the health of the mountain gorillas.

“When the gorillas venture out of the park, they often consume discarded food. This has lead to health problems, particularly among young gorillas. We have lost a few infants to intestinal diseases from the parasites in the foods they eat,” he says. However, Guma did not disclose the specific mortality figures, saying that plastics and discarded food threaten the entire ecosystem.

“We would like to incinerate all the discarded plastics. We try to check everyone entering the park and tell them to leave the plastics at the gate.

“From a broader perspective, wildlife includes animals and plants, both of which support life on the planet. So, by protecting wildlife, we are actually protecting ourselves. When you have healthy wildlife, you have healthy ecosystems. Different groups are making reusable bags from fibre which we are encouraging our visitors to use, instead of polythene bags,” he says.

The BMCT has constructed an incinerator in the park to address waste management, but Guma says one is not enough. Plans are underway to establish additional incinerators across various locations within the park.

“The BMCT now sorts waste, recycling plastic bottles and polythene, which are incinerated. Over the past 18 months, they have incinerated approximately 1.4 tonnes of waste. The ash is given to the community to mix with manure and fertilise their gardens. Those who have used the ash tell us it works,” Guma explains.

The initiatives by BMCT and the enthusiastic participation of local Batwa communities highlight the importance of intertwining cultural preservation and socioeconomic development with
conservation. Why investing in conservation? Uganda is home to several wild animals, both large and small, such as elephants, lions, gorillas, chimpanzees, baboons, monkeys, and giraffes. Most of the country’s wildlife is managed by UWA under ten national parks, 12 wildlife reserves, five community wildlife management areas, and 13 wildlife sanctuaries.

Edith Kabesiime, the wildlife campaign manager at World Animal Protection Africa, investing in conserving wild life is important for healthy ecosystem.

“From a broader perspective, wildlife includes animals and plants, both of which support life on the planet. So, by protecting wildlife, we are actually protecting ourselves. When you have healthy wildlife, you have healthy ecosystems, and in turn, healthy people. That is reason enough to invest in con-
servation,” she says.

Kabesiime adds that investing in conservation is also for purely financial reasons because Uganda benefits from nature-based tourism.

“However, even when we know that tourism is the biggest foreign exchange earner of this country, we are not doing enough investment in the wildlife sector. I may not be comfortable providing the figures but there is a big deficit and that is why organisations such as Uganda Bio-Diversity Trust Fund were established as private entities to bridge the funding gap,” she says.

However, the trust funds, which include BMCT, have not been supported by the government to grow, to enable them to offset the funding deficits in wildlife conservation.

“The investment we are making in the sector is narrowly targeted. There is this thinking that wildlife is only about animals. So, whatever resources are available are invested in national parks, gorillas, and other animals without looking at protecting our waters and forests, because wildlife is beyond tourism,” Kabesiime advises.

Investing in wildlife conservation is important because animals have a right to be protected, whether we derive any value from them or not.

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