Publications & Reports

The amount of food harvested, processed and stored by households determines food availability—a key dimension to food security. In developing countries, frontline households around protected areas harvest wild climbers for making food security products. When access to the wild climbers is denied, households adapt by using other available alternatives such as plastics with potential con- sequences to biodiversity. The relationships between harvesting wild climbers and: (a) food availability, (b) plastic use, and (c) wild climber populations have rarely been investigated.

This study was undertaken under the Greater Virunga Transboundary Collaboration (GVTC) involving three partner states of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda and Uganda. The collaborative transboundary framework of programs, plans and activities is aimed at conserving the network of Protected Areas (PAs) in the Greater Virunga Landscape (GVL).

The study was carried out under the Greater Virunga Transboundary Collaboration (GVTC) involving the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda and Uganda. The collaborative transboundary framework of programs, plans and activities is aimed at conserving the network of Protected Areas (PAs) in the Greater Virunga Landscape (GVL).

Sarambwe Nature Reserve (SNR) located in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is contiguous with Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (BINP) partly forming a corridor for wildlife such as mountain gorillas.

The Local Economic Development Through Pro-Poor Tourism project has demonstrated that it is possible to develop sustainable livelihood opportunities from tourism – even when they are not based on the main tourism attraction themselves. At Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, tourists visit to see gorillas. None of the enterprises supported by this project are offering gorilla viewing tours, yet they all have complementary products that can enhance the main tourism attraction. 

Sustainable utilisation of Non Timber Forest Products (NTFPS) is a widely accepted forestry management approach. Unfortunately the sustainability of NTFPS in high demand like the wild climbers used by local communities is rarely investigated over a period of time. Yet extraction of these wild climbers by local community for food security purposes has been on going in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park(BINP) since 1994.

The major cause of human-wildlife conflict (HWC) worldwide is the competition between the ever-increasing human populations and wildlife competing for the same declining living spaces and resources.