Continuities in environmental narratives, Kabale, Uganda ... - Foodnet

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agency for environmental management, and it advises local and district environmental committees on acceptable ways of management the environment. Although district and local level environmental committees formulate their own natural resource policies and plans, these are to be developed in conformity with key principles of environmental management, including that natural resources should be used sustainably, and that district environmental management plans target areas needing special assistance to ensure that resources are used sustainably. 67 Furthermore, the National Environment Statute of the 1995 Constitution established District Environment Committees, that are supposed to ‘co-ordinate the work of the District Local Councils on the environment as well as ensuing that environmental concerns are integrated in all plans and projects approved by the District Local Council.’ 68 But, as Mugabe and Tumushabe have noted using case studies from Southern and Eastern African ‘there is a disjunction between policy pronouncements and what actually takes place on the ground.’ 69 Indeed the government has had limited capacity in much of the 1980s and 1990s. But in terms of the rhetoric there is, today, a more explicit focus on environmental sustainability, which is reflected in documents such as the Environmental Action Plans 70 and there is also an increasing effort to ‘mainstream’ the environment in, for example Uganda’s poverty reduction strategy paper. 71 The term ‘environmental sustainability’ has become the new way of encompassing and expressing old fears about over population, soil erosion and land degradation and these old fears and assumptions continue, unquestioned, to have a major influence on policy. While the capacity of government policy makers to implement their policies has been severely hampered by budgetary and logistical constraints in the past two decades the capacity of outside agencies such as NGOs has not faced similar constraints and limitations. Thus NGOs play an important developmental role in Kabale today, with a huge number of NGOs working in the district. 72 See Box A 67 J. Lind and J. Cappon, Realities or rhetoric? Revisiting the decentralization of natural resources management in Uganda and Zambia (ACTS, Nairobi, 2001). 68 Tumushabe ‘Environmental governance, political change and constitutional development in Uganda’, 77. 69 J. Mugabe and G.W. Tumushabe ‘Environmental governance: conceptual and emerging issues’, in Okoth-Ogendo and Tumushabe Governing the Environment, 23. 70 See also T.J. Bassett and K. Bi Zuéli, ‘Environmental discourses and Ivorian Savanna’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 90 1, (2000), 67-95. 71 See S. Browning and P Driver ‘Uganda’s poverty eradication action plan’ in ‘Sustainable Livelihoods and the Environment: Sharing lessons and Approaches’ mimeo 2001 [Background paper available on http:\\www.livelihoods.org]. 72 R. Clausen, ‘A landscape approach for reviewing USAID Uganda Activities in the Southwest’ Report prepared for USAID. (April 2001). D:\_Uganda Land Use\SW land use and soils\Carswell papers\Carswell- Narratives paper-17 Dec.doc 12
Box A – Main NGOs working in Kabale NGO Project Funder Main concerns, aims, policies Key assumptions CARE Development through conservation (DTC) Africare Uganda Food Security Initiative International Centre for Research on Agroforestry (ICRAF) African Highlands Initiative (AHI) Centre International d’Agricole Tropical (CIAT) Africa 2000 Heifer Project International (HPI) International Gorilla Conservation Project (IGCP) Mgahinga Bwindi Impenetrable Forest Conservation Trust (MBIFCT) IUCN (UFSI) Danida (3 rd phase) (Phase 1 & 2 by USAID) Need to increase agricultural productivity in areas around Parks USAID Food security, agroforestry, tree nurseries, road construction and seed multiplication. AFRENA USAID Agricultural research and extension, agroforestry, tree nurseries AHI DfD (and others???///) Network on Bean Research in Africa USAID (and others) D:\_Uganda Land Use\SW land use and soils\Carswell papers\Carswell- Narratives paper-17 Dec.doc 13 Agricultural productivity low and falling; need to protect biodiversity in the Parks District is food insecure; agricultural productivity low and falling Deforestation has occurred under population pressure, agricultural productivity low and falling Agricultural research and extension Agricultural productivity low and falling Agricultural research and extension Agricultural productivity low and falling Agroforestry UNDP Agroforestry Agricultural productivity low and falling Dairy cattle provision Gorilla Conservation Conservation and development Uganda National Wetlands conservation and management project USAID (and others) African Wildlife Federation, USAID USAID, Netherlands Livestock and fodder Agricultural productivity low and falling Biodiversity Need to protect biodiversity in the Parks Management of national parks and provide development support to residents in close proximity to the parks. Need to protect biodiversity in the Parks Netherlands Biodiversity Need to protect biodiversity in the wetlands
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