Most local people interviewed, during a survey among communities living in close proximity to the Bwindi national park, described crop raiding by wildlife and prohibited access to forest resources, notably for firewood, as among the ways that the park conservation exacerbates poverty.

However, many also associated the building of schools and park-related employment as ways that the national park contributes towards poverty alleviation.

Poorer people and those with the lowest quality of life reported fewer benefits from Integrated Conservation and Development interventions than less poor people. However, there was no significant difference in terms of distance from the national park — people living close to the national park described receiving similar amounts of benefits to people living farther away.

To gain an understanding of all the people who make unauthorised use of resources, the profiles of bushmeat hunters, firewood collectors and building pole collectors were explored in the study. In addition, the park resources that local people harvested most were identified.

Although there have been successful ICD interventions, many that focus on reducing rural poverty have been criticised for failing to reduce threats to protected areas, often because the drivers of biodiversity loss and costs of conservation for local people are not fully understood.

Firewood was the second most frequently collected resource.

“As with bushmeat hunters, those who collected firewood and building poles from the national park lived in remote areas farther away from trading centres than others within their community. However, people collecting firewood were not localised to the frontline zone but lived within one kilometre of the national park and had more education than the average for local people of Bwindi,” the study observes.

A recent review found that the ICD approach was important for improving park-community relations but had several flaws: Interventions tended to benefit wealthier community members rather than the poorer households, who were assumed to be taking part in unauthorised resource use, and had little impact on reducing threats to the national park from unauthorised activities.  

“People collecting building poles had larger families and appeared to be less poor than the poorest people living around the national park. Despite this, the drivers of firewood and building pole collection were similar — a lack of land to grow trees and the lack of availability of these resources outside the national park,” the study adds.