Browsing by Author "Okumu, James Okot"

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The Influence of Community Based Organizations' (CBOs') Characteristics, Opportunities and Challenges on Sustainable Management of Forest, Water and Soil Commons: A Case of Mt. Elgon Ecosystem, Uganda
(2013) Kato, Stonewall Shaban; Okumu, James Okot; Obua, Joseph
"Between 2009 and 2010, Community Based Organizations' (CBOs) characteristics, opportunities and challenges faced in the management of forest, water and soil in the Mt. Elgon ecosystem in Uganda were assessed. The aim was to examine how CBO characteristics, opportunities and challenges influence their roles in the management of forest, water and soil resources. The study was conducted on a case of collective action by communities who improved their rights over common resources management by adapting appropriate institutional rules and practices as government role in forest, water and soil resources management dwindles in the area. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions and then entered in SPSS to create data file and later generate descriptive statistics. Multiple Linear Regression (MLR), chi-square tests, Kruskal-Wallis and Median tests were applied to show the relationships between the roles played by CBOs, their characteristics, opportunities available to them and the challenges they encountered while carrying out forest, water and soil management. Results reveal that CBO's longevity, size of area of operations and membership strength have significant positive correlation with CBOs' roles in forest, water and soil management (t=1.617, 0.948 and 0.043 respectively at p<0.05). It is recommended that there is a need to put in place a CBO advisory agency in the Mt. Elgon region to oversee community management of forest, water and soil around MENP."
Making Bush Meat Poachers Willingly Surrender Using Integrated Poachers Awareness Programme: A Case of Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda
(2008) Kato, Stonewall S.; Okumu, James Okot
"This paper is an interesting analysis of a unique case in MFPA, one of the East African National Parks in Uganda, where wild animal poachers are targeted in an intensive integrated education and awareness programme that makes them publicly surrender with their tools. The paper brings out yet another important approach that emphasises that for sustainable management of a protected area to be attained, involvement of local community is very important as opposed to the traditional approach of law enforcement, a practice prominent in the last centaury with limited success. MFPA was one of the most tourists' destinations in the 1960s only to be devastated during Uganda's civil unrest of 1970s and 1980s owing to the lack of awareness by the local communities that the resources in the PA are important to them too. "As the wildlife population is steadily increasing in MFPA, any approach such as the above that has demonstrated a positive move towards sustainable management is welcome. It is a strategy, which can be tried in other protected areas especially in the tropics."
The Role of Community Based Institutions in Sustainable Management of Forest, Water and Soil: A Case Study of Mount Elgon Ecosystem, Uganda
(2006) Kato, Stonewall S.; Okumu, James Okot
"This review paper is on the role played by community based institutions in the sustainable management of forest, soil and water in the last two decades at Mount Elgon, Uganda. "The paper explores how the state can create good conditions for community based institutions to participate in natural resource management without itself taking a much active role. The case of Mount Elgon, Uganda is where NGOs and CBOs by default, 'mushroomed' to fill in the gap created by the central government, which had failed to manage the mountain natural resources since 1970. In the early 1990s, the government realized its weakness and put in place good policies and legislation, which made community based institutions to blossom, and without even proper coordination mechanism, yielded a significant positive impact towards the sustainable management of Mount Elgon ecosystem. "The paper evaluates some key indicators used to determine the successes and failures of CBIs. Among them are, the contribution of CBIs to policy and legislative reforms and adherence to good sustainable management principles. The level of capacity building especially in the areas of strengthening of local peoples' rights, negotiation power and self- governance is discussed. Another indicator analyzed is the level of promotion of management of livelihood assets. Also review is level of strengthening financial availability and mechanism towards (un) sustainability. The level of reduction to vulnerability is considered. Promotion of environmental benefits and the contribution by CBIs towards reduction of threats on biodiversity was evaluated "The analysis compared the rich experience of mount Elgon case with related national resource management practices elsewhere. The paper then ends by making some recommendations on the way forward for the management of the ecosystem, which offers good lesson learning for the region and the entire global community."