When Bwindi was gazetted a national park in 1991, local people were no longer allowed to enter the forest to extract any products, as they used to when it was still a Forest Reserve. This led to resentment from the communities towards the management authority (then the Uganda National Parks) as they perceived it as a denial to resources important to their livelihoods. In 1993, as a way of improving relations between the parties,  the Multiple Use (MU) program was introduced in some parts of the park to allow for sustainable extraction of specific forest non-timber products like crafts materials, medicinal plants and honey. 

The aim of this study was to find out, after 10 years of the MU program, which products local people have actually been extracting from the park, how this helped them economically, socially and culturally. Had the program indeed improved people’s perspectives on the park management? Data was gathered by conducting interviews and using pre-designed questionnaires in four parishes surrounding BINP, two with (72 respondents) and two without (25) MU agreements. These were; Mukono, Bushura, Karangala and Rutugunda. Information was also gathered from key informants who included local council chair persons and park Photo by Munyuli                                                     staff, in addition to direct observations

Most people (86%) had harvested forest products required for handicrafts and basketry, the remaining 14% collected medicinal plants from the MU zones. 4% of the people interviewed regarded the sale of handicrafts as their primary source of income and considered the MU program to have greatly contributed to their social wellbeing.

Although the program was created to improve relations between the park management and local communities, the latter had little say in how it was implemented. The location and size of the MU zones, as well as the rules and regulations on harvesting were imposed by the park management on the people. There are only a few people who harvest forest resources and rules about harvesting are unclear to the majority of people. The author concludes that the MU program was not participatory and had not satisfactorily improved relations between local communities and the park management.                                                                                                   Photo by R. Bitariho

The author recommends that local communities should be more involved in planning and decision making concerning the management of the park. If park management wants to further improve relations with local communities, it should assist them with introducing unpalatable crops like coffee and tea to fend off crop raiding animals, and more often consider local people to be employed in their social/community work.