LUCID Projects - Uganda Sites: Results

Socio-Economic Surveys: Focus on Policy

The research focused on a set of intermediate variables through which demographic changes can alter the natural environment. These variables are especially important because they include the main physical and social properties that define the relationship between farmers and their land. Size holdings, fragmentation (dispersion), and fragility are among the more obvious physical attributes that differentiate one farmer’s holdings from another’s. It is clear, increasing demographic pressure and the resulting competition for scarce resources promotes restructuring of the physical and social attributes of landholding. In return, these changes can damage soil productivity.

Socio-economic changes at the community level induce responses in the land management both at household and community levels. At community levels, responses may take forms of land use change, migration, and land investment/intensive management. Population growth, particularly in resources scarce environments, can lead to changes in the structure of landholding (size of holdings, fragmentation/dispersion, fragility, tenure etc). It is the result of adaptation that triggers environmental and social stress often culminating in conflicts. Policies influence this process of change at various levels; by affecting pressure factors; by directly affecting community condition e.g. restriction on resource use; by intervening in local markets e.g. land-titling programs. The traditional perspectives on population and agricultural intensification, such as those developed by Malthus and Boserup are incomplete at best. They fail to fully incorporate the intermediate linkages both to and from the changing structure of landholding.

Land policy, land rights and land reform are important ingredients in the poverty reduction process in both rural and urban areas of the developing world. Several land issues are often complex and politically contentious, and for these reasons have been unresolved. This however, makes land issues, - poverty issues, political environmental issues and above all national issues. This report aims at highlighting the impacts of salient land polices in Uganda and the factors behind the land impasse and the importance of a clear land policy in national development and integration. The trend maintained is that, land is across-cutting issue in poverty reduction while sustainable development and user rights of land are a kin to two ears of the same corn.

Major conclusions: Land policy and Land Use Change

1. Land use change is intricately associated with policy, dynamic values and perception of land users as well as exogenous factors such as demand and supply issues in global market systems.
2. Knowledge of different implications of and use practices is critical for natural resource utilisation
3. Exogenous factors such as refugee influx seriously influence land utilisation
4. The commonly held notion that land degradation occurs as a direct result of demographic pressure is an over simplification of what is actually a very complex relationship. The simplicity of the logic is enticing, but is equally incomplete.
5. Security of tenure is a preliquisite to long-term investment in soil productivity, regardless of whether ownership is in individual or collective hands.

6. As farm size shrinks, holdings become more fragmented, not in the number of parcels operated but in the distance between parcels. The cultivation of more distant fields usually reduces farmer investments. In some cases, fragmentation means greater agro ecological diversity, a condition that helps insure farmer against the risk of total crop failure.
7. Unless farmers can expect an economic return equal to their level of investment, there will be little incentive for them to adopt such practices. We cannot assume that conservation technologies will be attractive to farmers simply because they protect the resource base.
8. The subdivision and consolidation of landholdings (e.g. land reform), absentee landholding, and use of fragile lands are all part of the structure of landholding. These are emotional issues and are subject to change in government policy. The kinds of incentives and sanctions surrounding the structure of landholding are factors that can change it. Because of socio- cultural, agro-climatic and historical uniqueness, these factors differ vastly from one place to another.

For more details of land degradation indicators, major findings and critical synthesis of the results, please refer to Uganda LUCID Working Paper Number Three and Paper Number Four.

3. Linkages between Land cover/use change and Biodiversity loss, and Land Degradation

Uganda is losing biodiversity fast – at about 10% per decade according to one estimate. The driving forces are generally agreed to be the increasing human population and the resulting changes in land use. However, the details of these processes are not well-documented.

In this preliminary study, we report on three study areas (Sango Bay, LMNP & Kabale/Ntungamo Border) in south-western Uganda. Except for Sango Bay, the rest of the sites were originally savannas but which are now heavily used for the keeping of livestock or for agriculture. As described above, land use changes were documented from remotely-sensed data and from interviews with local people. Signs of land degradation were recorded and soil analysed from a series of sites.

Biodiversity changes were investigated by using flowering plants and birds. Much of the native flora and most of the birds native to the area persist in pastoral areas (although large mammals are eliminated). However, native plants are greatly reduced in cultivated areas, where signs of land degradation are also most obvious. Comparing birds in areas of different land use, and over a period of years (using other data sources) shows that species requiring trees are prone to declines everywhere, but especially in cultivated areas (for details, refer to Uganda LUCID Working Paper Number Five).

Since pastoral lands are also beginning to change, well-managed Protected Areas are the key to survival of the native flora and fauna. Sympathetic land use practices, such as agroforestry, and corridors along roads and streams will be useful too. We suggest ideas to be tested along these lines.