A Critical Conversation on Climate Change ... - Green Choices

246 development dialogue september 2006 – carbon tradingBut hasn’t the project improved the economy of the region?Locals indignantly reject FACE Foundation claims that the projecthas increased incomes, improved standards of living work, providedjobs in planting and nurseries, and given out seedlings for villagers toplant on their farms.A Funny Place to Store Carbon: Land Disputes at Mount ElgonMount Elgon was first gazetted as a CrownForest in 1938 and became a central forestreserve in 1968 and a national park in 1993.But the area has a long history of humanoccupation and use. Already in the 1930s,many families were living within theboundary, with about 70 heritable licencesissued to families living and cultivatingthe forest reserve. In 1954, when the firstworking plan for Mount Elgon forest reservewas written, there were still around30 licensed families living there.Forest boundaries were originally markedby holes. In 1962, the forest was resurveyedand live boundary markers, including treesof exotic species, were put in place. However,the boundaries were not plotted onthe national land grid, making it hard lateron to establish where they had been whenthe markers were destroyed.Between 1970 and 1985, during an era ofbreakdown of law and order, high levels ofindustrial timber exploitation and confusedforest policy, some 25,000 hectares of primehigh montane forest between 2000 and3000 metres in altitude were destroyed ordegraded through clearing for agriculturalactivities. Pit-sawing combined with swiddencultivation reduced the densely-forestedlower slopes to barer landscapes colonised byKikuyu grass (Pennisetum clandestinum). 43In 1993, Mount Elgon was designated as anational park. But local people were notconsulted, in violation of the law. Familiesfound inside the 1963 boundaries – someof whom had occupied the land for over40 years – were given nine days to vacate,despite the understanding among many ofthem that the land was theirs and that sucharbitrary evictions are in breach of landlaws as well as the subsequent 1995 Constitution,which recognises customary ownership.In August 2003, the Uganda Land Alliancestarted proceedings against the AttorneyGeneral and the UWA on behalf of theBenet people (also known as Ndorobo), whoare indigenous to Mount Elgon. The Benet,who had been evicted in both 1983 and 1993,had decided to take the government to courtto claim their land rights, and accused theUWA of harassment. The government cutoff education and health services to the areaand forbade local people from working theland. In October 2005, however, Justice J.B.Katutsi ruled that the Benet people ‘are historicaland indigenous inhabitants of the saidareas which were declared a Wildlife ProtectedArea or National Park’. Katutsi ruledthat the area should be de-gazetted and thatthe Benet should be allowed to live on andcontinue farming their land. 44