Katonga Wildlife Reserve - Frontier-publications.co.uk

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Katonga Wildlife Reserve 5A number of factors caused this situation to change. Increases in the number of cattle as aresult of the control of tsetse, the advent of modern veterinary medicine, and theestablishment of artificial watering points began to put pressure on the traditional Ankolegrazing lands. This pressure was exacerbated from the late 1960s onwards by the conversionof 650km 2 of grazing land from traditional communal use to (mainly) privately held, fencedleaseholds through the government sponsored Ankole Ranching Scheme. Although thescheme was specifically aimed at bringing traditional subsistence pastoralists into the modernlivestock industry, eligibility criteria tended to rule out most true pastoralists in favour ofthose who were already part of the cash economy. The result was that most pastoralists wereleft without access to enough land for their ever increasing herds. The situation deterioratedstill further as the arrival of internal refugees, displaced by the troubles of the 1970s and highhuman population growth rates, led to encroachment of grazing lands by cultivators (FraserStewart, 1992). Squeezed out of their traditional grazing lands in Ankole, many Bahimamigrated to the Katonga River valley, and stayed year round (Kayabwe, 1994). UnderresourcedGame Department staff were unable to stop them encroaching on the reserve, andan aerial survey showed that in 1982 it was home to almost 11,000 cattle, and contained some2,300 huts (Eltringham et al., 1992).The 1982 aerial survey also showed that wildlife populations had declined massively duringthe 1970s, as was typical of PAs throughout the country (Eltringham et al., 1992). Lack ofcommitment from government left the small remaining populations poorly protected andisolated from those to the west by the expansion of agriculture, and from those to the south bythe fencing of the Ankole Ranching Scheme and other livestock industry developments.Cattle numbers, however, continued to rise through the 1980s as the refugees’ communalgrazing lands to the north and the edges of the reserve itself were encroached upon bynational (Ugandan) cultivators. As a result of population growth in their home districts, thesenationals came looking for new land to clear, to which, as citizens, they felt they had a right.The refugees’ cattle were confined to ever decreasing pockets of grazing land in the midst ofa sea of cultivation, leading to conflicts over crop damage. The encroaching nationals showedmore resolve than the Game Department, and many refugee families moved south into thereserve year round. Permanent high densities of cattle precluded traditional rangemanagement practices, such as rotational grazing, which were further undermined byinsecurity of tenure of the communal resource, leading to widespread overgrazing (Kayabwe,1994). This reduced the pasture’s capacity to support cattle, resulting in a negative spiral ofever worse overgrazing.In the early 1990s there was a series of attempts to remove both people and cattle from thereserve. These were largely unsuccessful due to lack of resources on the part of the GameDepartment, lack of political will, and because there was no attempt to find new land forthose evicted (Paul Ross, pers. comm.). They did, however, serve to sour relations betweenGame Department staff and those living within the reserve, who were forced to pay various‘fines’ and ‘fees’ before being allowed to return to the reserve. In 1992 a quarantine forContagious Bovine Pleuro-Pneumonia (CBPP) was introduced, precluding any movement ofcattle, and hence even the possibility of a relatively straight forward solution to the problem(Kayabwe, 1994).Frontier-Uganda Wildlife Protected Areas Project September 1997Baseline Surveys Programme Report No. 9
Katonga Wildlife Reserve 6In April 1993 the boundary of the reserve was resurveyed and redemarcated at key points.Until this time, the portion west of the Kabega River in Kibale county had been managedfrom Fort Portal, while the portion east of the Kabega River in Kyaka county had beenmanaged from Mubende. The position of the ranger post in the far south-east of the reserve,coupled with the lack of infrastructure, had meant that what Game Department presence therehad been during the 1970s and 80s had not really been felt in the western part of the reserve,which, as a result, was much more densely settled. When the boundary was resurveyed andredemarcated, many people living in the western part were surprised to discover that theywere inside the reserve. These people believe that the reserve had expanded and made themencroachers in areas in which they had previously been legally settled, and to them, theboundary is known as the ‘new’ boundary (Paul Ross, pers. comm.).1.4 Current situationFollowing the events of 1994, almost all of the Rwandan refugees returned home with theircattle, reducing enormously the pressure on the grazing resources of the reserve. An aerialsurvey in 1995 showed there to be less than 2,000 cattle in the reserve, a reduction of some9,000 since 1982, and only 400 huts, a reduction of some 1,900 (Lamprey & Michelmore,1996).The Bahima pastoralists who remain in the reserve use the entire area, moving their cattlesouth to the Katonga River in the dry seasons and dispersing north in the wet seasons.Cultivators have also encroached on the reserve, particularly in the north-west, aroundOburama, where there is a well established community.In June 1996, during the course of this survey, instructions were received by the reserve stafffrom UWA headquarters in Kampala to evict all encroachers by the end of that month. Therewas no opportunity for discussion, and no arrangements were made regarding alternativeland, or the movement of cattle across veterinary cordons. Despite this, albeit somewhatreluctantly, all of the encroachers left without incident before the deadline. A few familiesreturned from whence they had come, and a few left in search of new land elsewhere, butmost gathered around the edges of the reserve to wait and see what would happen. In the firstweek of July, under orders, the rangers destroyed homes, granaries, and crops left behind inthe reserve.The pastoralists, who tend to lead a fairly transient lifestyle, were relatively unaffected by thedestruction of property, but were extremely upset by the sudden denial of access to thepermanent waters of the Katonga River in the height of the dry season, and concerned aboutthe denial of access to the dry season pasture within the reserve. However, they still had theircattle, which are the basis for their subsistence and wealth, and in theory at least, could moveon. On 21 July the pastoralists had a meeting with the CCW, facilitated by the Frontier-Uganda Socio-economics Co-ordinator, at which they explained their concerns. Acompromise was reached whereby the CCW granted them permission to water their cattle atthe Katonga River for the rest of that dry season, pending a final decision on the issue,although he did not permit them to graze their cattle in the reserve, nor to stay in the reserveat night.Frontier-Uganda Wildlife Protected Areas Project September 1997Baseline Surveys Programme Report No. 9
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