Uganda - Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park Conservation Project

The Mgahinga Gorilla National Park Conservation Project will support the biodiversity conservation in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (BINP) and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park both directly, by providing incremental support for park management and related research activities, and indirectly, by funding grants to help local community groups develop economic activities which will provide alternative means of meeting needs which were traditionally met by harvesting forest resources (e.g. timber, poles, meat, cash income). Among the types of activities likely to be funded are beekeeping (including marketing of products), agro-forestry and woodlots, dairy and poultry production and ecotourism services and facilities. These economic activities will help compensate the communities for the loss of their traditional access to these resources when the forest were gazetted as protected areas. They will also help discourage illegal exploitation and burning of the forests, which the authorities cannot completely eliminate through simple enforcement, by providing alternatives and by fostering a positive attitude among the communities toward these national parks as the source of concrete benefits. The cooperative approach to managing the funds will also provide an opportunity for the different stakeholders to work together to identify and achieve common objectives. The funds available from the Trust for these three components (park management, research, community projects) will be very modest compared to the total needs in each case. The Trust is meant to provide incremental support, complementing but not displacing funds from the Government of Uganda and other donors. The project also represents an experiment in application of two important principles for biodiversity conservation: (1) including community representatives as full partners in decision-making, as a means of gaining community support for conservation and "ownership" of the project, and (2) the use of a Trust Fund as a mechanism for providing reliable, long-term funding for conservation activities.