Local Communities and Compliance with the Forestry Policy: Perspectives from South Busoga Central Forest Reserve, Mayuge District, Eastern Uganda

The Uganda Forestry Policy, 2001 provides a panacea for formal conservation of forest resources in the country but since its inception like other previous and cohort policies, the forest resources have been disturbingly petering out even in the government managed central forest reserves, South Busoga Central Forest Reserve (SBCFR) epitomizes this policy failure manifested in illegalities in the forestry docket country wide. A total of 344 local communities engulfing SBCFR and 31 conservationist with vested interest in SBCFR reveled that their perception on factors leading to non-compliance were strongly correlated at r = 83 which was at (>0.65<0.85) segment of the strength of correlation at a 0.05 level of significance. This therefore meant that soil fertility in the forest reserve, poverty and population pressure were the main driving forces to non-compliance. Using Chi-square statistic value it was clear that none of the possible aspects viz., individual concern at (χ2 = 27.9); self reporting at (χ2 = 85.0); criminalising failure to report and submission of false report at (χ2 = 69.8) and lenient treatment of self reporting at (χ2 = 94.2) was statistically possible in the compliance with the forestry policy at (df = 2 at 0.01 = 9.210) at SBCFR, Mayuge district. A Likert scale attitude index revealed that the local communities were somewhat willing to stop illegalities at an attitude index of 360 and very much willing to stop illegalities at an attitude index of 270. This therefore was positive towards compliance with the forestry policy, 2001. The researchers therefore recommended family planning to ease population pressure; agro-forestry skewed towards soil fertilization as a local community detachment with the forest reserve and collaborative forest management.