Community attitudes and behaviour towards conservation: an assessment of a community conservation programme around Lake Mburo National Park, Uganda

Abstract This paper analyses the impact of a community conservation programme (CCP) implemented over a 7-year period around a national park in Uganda. Programme activities included dialogue, conflict reduction, education, community resource access and support for community development. Surveys of attitudes show that communities benefited from the programme were significantly more positive towards the park and wildlife than communities that did not. The community conservation programme built an understanding of conservation objectives amongst communities whose members were more likely to recognize positive aspects of the park and less likely to demand that it be degazetted. Comparison over the 7-year duration of the programme, however, did not show that communities were generally more positive towards conservation. They were more critical of management and demanded more support and resources than they had received. Their behaviour was not greatly changed, and high levels of poaching and illegal grazing continued. Attitudes were influenced by communities receiving development assistance, but improvements were fragile, vulnerable to poor behaviour of park staff and lawenforcement activities. Both were seen as contradicting community approaches. Attitudes were also influenced by land ownership and economic occupation. The CCP was not a panacea for the problems of the park and did not resolve fundamental conflicts of interest between communities and park management. However, it did change the way the protagonists perceive and interact with each other.

[1]  J. Hackel.  Community Conservation and the Future of Africa's Wildlife , 1999 .

[2]  J. Murombedzi.  Devolution and stewardship in Zimbabwe's CAMPFIRE programme , 1999 .

[3]  David Hulme,et al.  Communities, wildlife and the 'new conservation' in Africa , 1999 .

[4]  W. Adams,et al.  Institutional sustainability and community conservation: a case study from Uganda , 1999 .

[5]  L. Emerton.  BALANCING THE OPPORTUNITY COSTS OF WILDLIFE CONSERVATION FOR COMMUNITIES AROUND LAKE MBURO NATIONAL PARK, UGANDA , 1999 .

[6]  P. Scott..  From Conflict To Collaboration: People and Forests at Mount Elgon, Uganda , 1998 .

[7]  D. Lewis,et al.  Wildlife snaring – an indicator of community response to a community-based conservation project , 1998, Oryx.

[8]  L. Naughton-Treves.  Predicting Patterns of Crop Damage by Wildlife around Kibale National Park, Uganda , 1998 .

[9]  A. Noss.  Challenges to nature conservation with community development in central African forests , 1997, Oryx.

[10]  M. Stahl,et al.  Parks and people : conservation and livelihoods at the crossroads : four case histories , 1997 .

[11]  M. Pimbert,et al.  Social change and conservation: environmental politics and impacts of national parks and protected areas. , 1997 .

[12]  W. Adams,et al.  Conservation and sustainable resource use in the Hadejia–Jama'are Valley, Nigeria , 1996, Oryx.

[13]  B. Byers.  Understanding and influencing behaviors in conservation and natural resources management , 1996 .

[14]  S. Jacobson,et al.  Local Communities and Protected Areas: Attitudes of Rural Residents Towards Conservation and Machalilla National Park, Ecuador , 1995, Environmental Conservation.

[15]  M. Wells.  Biodiversity Conservation and Local Development Aspirations: New Priorities for the 1990s , 1995 .

[16]  D. Ehrenfeld.  Readings from Conservation biology , 1995 .

[17]  M. Infield,et al.  Socio-economic survey of communities in the buffer zone of Lake Mburo National Park , 1994 .

[18]  George Monbiot,et al.  No Man's Land: An Investigative Journey Through Kenya and Tanzania , 1994 .

[19]  K. Ghimire.  Parks and People: Livelihood Issues in National Parks Management in Thailand and Madagascar , 1994 .

[20]  N. Peluso.  Coercing conservation?: The politics of state resource control , 1993 .

[21]  S. Eltringham,et al.  The conservation status of Uganda's game and forest reserves in 1982 and 1983 , 1993 .

[22]  John G. Robinson.  The Limits to Caring: Sustainable Living and the Loss of Biodiversity , 1993 .

[23]  B. Campbell,et al.  Attitudes of Rural Communities to Animal Wildlife and Its Utilization in Chobe Enclave and Mababe Depression, Botswana , 1992, Environmental Conservation.

[24]  Jonathan S. Adams,et al.  The Myth of Wild Africa: Conservation Without Illusion , 1998 .

[25]  David M. Anderson,et al.  Conservation in Africa : people, policies, and practice , 1989 .

[26]  J. Mackenzie.  Conservation in Africa: Chivalry, social Darwinism and ritualised killing: the hunting ethos in Central Africa up to 1914 , 1988 .

[27]  M. Infield.  Attitudes of a rural community towards conservation and a local conservation area in Natal, South Africa , 1988 .

[28]  J. Verschuren.  Akagera National Park. , 1986 .

[29]  J. Kingdon.  Lake Mburo—a new national park in Africa , 1985, Oryx.