Land Use Policy 49 (2015) 236–251 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Land Use Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol Three decades of forest cover change in Uganda’s Northern Albertine Rift Landscape Ronald Twongyirwe a,∗ , Mike Bithell a , Keith S. Richards a , W.G. Rees a,b a Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Downing Place, Cambridge CB2 3EN, England, United Kingdom b Scot Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, Lensfield Road, Cambridge, CB2 1ER, England, United Kingdom a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 15 October 2014 Received in revised form 30 June 2015 Accepted 15 July 2015 Keywords: Deforestation Forest gain spatial-scale Albertine Rift Landscape a b s t r a c t Deforestation within and outside protected areas is widespread in Western Uganda, but quantification of such forest changes is rare. In this study, spatio- temporal forest cover patterns in the Northern Albertine Rift Landscape were reconstructed for the period 1985–2014, over a range extending from Bugoma forest in the South of the region to as far as Murchison Falls National Park in the North, an area approximately 225 km North-South by 63 km East–West. We examine both the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of the land cover changes. Seven 30 × 30 m resolution, ortho-rectified, cloud-free Landsat images obtained from the USGS archive were analysed at the landscape- and three smaller scales. Forest classification using Landsat imagery appears robust; similar amounts are obtained from a UK-DMCii image (22 m resolution) taken a day before the Landsat scene in Dec, 2010. Our results show that larger-scale aggregate measures of total change can obscure more local patterns, in which protected areas and the national park maintain or grow forest cover, whilst the forest corridor areas that are not protected suffer drastic losses. Time- series show that the loss continues nearly linearly into the present around Bugoma, but seems to level off around Budongo Forest after 2010, apparently because almost all forested corridor areas have been cleared. At the landscape scale, between 1985 and 2014, the data suggest approximately 0.4% of initial cover was lost per year. However, this was mostly a result of the large protected forest blocks remaining relatively stable; deforestation was mostly situated in the corridor and riverine areas. Local-scale losses were most prominent in unprotected forests around Budongo and Bugoma, with annual losses at a much higher average rate about of 3.3% per year in each case. The annual rates of loss are higher than Uganda’s average (1–3%). Forest cover in the protected zones expanded only marginally, with annual average increases of order 0.03% and 0.5% in Budongo and Bugoma reserves, respectively. Our results suggest that forest protection in the gazetted areas is successful, and the protection policy is working, but these forests are being isolated by large losses immediately outside the protected zones, in the forest corridors. This may have severe social and ecological consequences—both within and outside protected forests. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Deforestation threatens biodiversity, climate and livelihoods (Bala et al., 2007). Deforestation rates in the African Tropics are some of the highest in the world (Achard et al., 2002), and accounted for over 23% of global forest loss between 1990 and 2009 (Houghton, 2012). Deforestation is reported to have increased in several parts of Uganda in the last half-century. Examples include conversion for coffee production around Mt. Elgon in Eastern Uganda (Sassen et al., 2013). Forest loss on protected and pri- ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: twongyirwe@gmail.com (R. Twongyirwe). vate land around Kibale National Park in South- western Uganda is attributed to charcoal production (with preference for old-growth hardwood tropical species), high fuelwood demand by the tea industry, settlement and agricultural expansion (Naughton-Treves et al., 2007). Forest cover has been lost around Bwindi impenetrable forest in South-western Uganda, as a result of agricultural expan- sion and ambiguous forest boundaries (Twongyirwe et al., 2011). Recently, Ryan et al. (2014) found that population changes are cor- related with forest loss along the whole Albertine Rift, but they sampled the region sparsely, excluding protected areas, and only looked at two time points. There is however evidence of successful forest protection in some National Parks and Forest Reserves by Uganda’s designated forest authorities (e.g., Bwindi impenetrable forest, see Hamilton et al., 2000; Budongo, Wambabya and Bugoma forests—this paper). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2015.07.013 0264-8377/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.