**2.2 Policy principles and opportunities specific to CFM**

The 2001 National Forestry Policy for Uganda emphasizes government commitment to "promote innovative approaches to community participation in forest management on both government and private forest land" (MWLE, 2001). The Policy puts a strong emphasis on public involvement especially, forest adjacent communities, and benefit from sustainable forest management, including the application of CFM. It says in part: "Collaborative Forest Management will define the rights, roles and responsibilities of partners and the basis for sharing benefits from improved management. There will be a specific focus on wide stakeholder participation, collective responsibility and equity and on improving the livelihoods of forest dependent communities".

The National Forestry and Tree Planting Act (2003) lay out a legal framework for the development of CFM agreements for various categories of forest reserves in Uganda (GOU, 2003). Section 15 of the Act says that one or more responsible bodies may enter into a CFM arrangement with the Central or Local Government for the purpose of the management of the whole or part of a Central or Local Forest Reserve in accordance with generally acceptable principles of forest management as may be prescribed in guidelines issued by the Minister. A responsible body refers to a body appointed to manage, maintain and control a forest reserve and includes; the National Forestry Authority, a Local Council, a Local

Collaborative Forest Management in Uganda:

**2.3 Power relations and their impact on CFM** 

legal frameworks on which to build PFM work.

**2.4 Current programmes under CFM in Uganda 2.4.1 Integrated forest management planning process** 

draft management plan, and (ix) submission of final plan

**2.4.2 Promotion of private and community forests** 

**2.4.3 Community forest committees** 

to, utilisation of forest products.

Benefits, Implementation Challenges and Future Directions 59

forestry development in Uganda that provides a framework for implementing 2001 Uganda Forestry Policy into action clarifies under makes provision for CFM by encouraging partnerships between lead forest agencies and local communities to enhance people's access

Forest Reserves were largely established during the colonial times with most of them being gazetted between the years 1920–1960 (Turyahabwe & Banana, 2008). This drew out forests from the public sector into the protective hands of the state. This also disbanded communal property ownership, access and management. This meant that forest reserves belong to government and that communities have lesser power over these resources. A power analysis of the status quo is provided examining the specific relationships relevant to proposed CFM advocacy work. Table 1 provides the management arrangements, characteristics and how they affect collaborative approaches. Based on the analysis in this Table 1, there is a strong indication for proponents of participatory forest management approaches to influence a shift in power relationship. The unequal relationships are based on the fact that forests can only be managed by a corporate entity and there are policy and

In order to meet the policy demand for CFM, an integrated forest management process is being used to develop management plans for forest reserves. The purpose of adopting such a process is to ensure that local communities participate in the planning and decision making process in forest management. Basically the process involves about 10 steps: (i) formation of reserve planning team, (ii) inauguration and training of reserve planning team, (iii) resource assessment and inventories, (iv) socio-economic surveys, (v) information gathering from maps, old plans, reserve settlement agreements, logging history, etc, (vi) preparation of draft management plans, (vii) reserve planning workshop, (viii) review of

In accordance with the 2001 Uganda Forest policy, the government through the Forest Sector Support Department (FSSD) is encouraging the establishment of plantations and dedicated forests as a means of enriching the off reserve timber resources. A scheme is being developed to provide loans and grants for private companies and individuals to embark on forest plantations and dedicated forest as a means enriching the off reserve timber resource. With the 'right of veto' given to farmers and landowners in the procedure for felling trees off forest reserves, they are motivated to tend young indigenous trees and plant more trees.

A major drawback to the CFM programme was the lack of a recognizable and well informed body who will liaise with the FSSD and the forest fringe communities to ensure that their aspirations, knowledge and needs from forest resources and forest management is expressed and realized. To this end, Community Forest Committees are being formed to: (a) permanently represent the forest fringe communities on forest management issues at the
