[ I RESEARCH NOTES Commonwealth Forest/)' Review 77(2), 1998 113 Attitudes of local communities towards forest management practices in Uganda: the case of Budongoforest reserve , !. J. OBUA, A.v. BANANAand N. TURYAHABWE Department of Forestry. Makerere University, P.O. Box 7062 Kampala,Uganda SUMMARY Positive attitudes of local communities towards forest management practices are an essential prerequisite for local participation in forest management. In Budongo forest reserve. local communities have negative attitudes towards forest management practices because of the strict rules on forest resource utilisation. For a long time local people have had restricted access toF~xtract traditional non-timber forest products from Budongo Forest Reserve and were not given timber felling licences, This denied them the benefits of timber business and resulted in mistrust, antagonism and conflicts with the Forest Department. A study of 200 households showed the associations between soeio-economic features of people living close to the forest and their use of forest resources and demonstrated the basis of attitudes towards those managing the forest. Since Uganda is going through the process of democratic reform and decentralisation of public administraiion. it is felt that local communities could be empowered to co-manage and benefit from forest resources in their vicinity, Keywords: forest management practices. conflicts. local community participation. attitudes. INTRODUCTION Gazetted forests in Uganda are managed and protected by , the state. In many parts of the world. state management of forest reserves has been criticised for ignoring local community participation in forest management and failing to recognise local communities' needs for forest products (Wily 1994). In such a situation. local people lose the feeling of owning the forests and develop negative attitudes towards them (Tewari 1996). This in turn leads to indiscriminate exploitation of forests, degradation and deforestation. Historically, restrictions on forest resource use have been practised by some traditional African societies. for example, in the sacred forest groves of Ghana and the former royal hunting areas in Zambia (Ntiamda-Baiud et ai, 1992). While most forest management policies may reflect genuine concern for the preservation of natural forests, it is also evident that little regard has been given to the subsistence needs of local people. thus causing local resentment. Given the historical antecedents of today's gazetted forests in Africa, it is not surprising that the attitudes of local people living adjacent to forest reserves reflect suspicion and mistrust of forest management policies. Management of forest reserves for the sustainable supply of forest products and provision of environmental benefits is a key aspect of Uganda's forest management policy. Over the past 30 years. inadequate funding and human resources have severely constrained the govern- ment's capacity to manage the foreslestate effectively. Furthermore, lack of effective monitoring, rule enforce- ment and a mechanism to coordinate formal government forest management and community use activities resulted in uncontrolled exploitation and degradation of natural forests. In order to achieve efficient management of forest resources, local community parlicipati<1nis essential, but this is largely governed by local people's attitudes towards forest resource protection. Before a collaborative forest manag~ment programme can be introduced, there is a need to clearly understand the nature of forest resource use by local communities, their socio-economic characteristics and attitudes towards forest management practices. In additiof], the programme needs to be included in the forest management plan, Optimum forest management planning requires suftlcient information collected from the field and this study has attempted to provide information about local communities that could be incorporated in Budongo's management plan by seeking answers to the following questions: To what extent do local communities living adjacent to Budongo forest reserve make use of the forest? How docs forest resource exploitation fit into the current forest manage- ment practice? Is there a relationship between local com- munities' socio-economic characteristics and their atti- tudes towards forest management practices? It is clear