Politician and the enforcement of the Uganda Forestry Policy 2001: lessons from South Busoga Central Forest Reserve, Mayuge district, Eastern Uganda.

Abstract

There has been a conundrum in apportioning blame on the petering out of forest resources in central forest reserves amongst the politicians; foresters and the local communities engulfing the forest reserves in the post independent Uganda. This could be attributed to conflicts of interest amongst these major stakeholders in the forestry docket de-legitimizing the myriad of forestry and other related policies, acts and the constitution of Uganda. A total of 344 households, 76 local politicians inclusive and 31 environment conservationists with interest at South Busoga Forest Reserve, Mayuge district studied showed that there was a high/strong relationship between the politicians' interference with enforcement of Forestry Policy at SBCFR at r=0.74 at a 0.05 level of significance; the politicians from the communities engulfing SBCFR did not maximally endeavour to either protect or make strategies which could conserve the forest reserve in their proximity hence the immense non-compliance with the Forestry Policy manifested by illegalities in SBCFR, Mayuge district and there was a conflict between NFA and politicians over management of SBCFR. It was therefore recommended that a positive political will was necessary so as to avert truncation of government regulatory mechanism with a prevalence of the 1995 Constitution of the Republic of Uganda, incase of any misnomers