Unauthorized use of natural resources is a key threat to many protected areas. Approaches to reducing this threat include law enforcement and integrated conservation and development (ICD) projects, but for such ICDs to be targeted effectively, it is important to understand who is illegally using which natural resources and why. The nature of unauthorized behavior makes it difficult to ascertain this information through direct questioning. Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda, has many ICD projects, including authorizing some local people to use certain nontimber forest resources from the park. However, despite over 25 years of ICD, unauthorized resource use continues. We used household surveys, indirect questioning (unmatched count technique), and focus group discussions to generate profiles of authorized and unauthorized resource users and to explore motivations for unauthorized activity. Overall, unauthorized resource use was most common among people from poor households who lived closest to the park boundary and farthest from roads and trading centers. Other motivations for unauthorized resource use included crop raiding by wild animals, inequity of revenue sharing, and lack of employment, factors that created resentment among the poorest communities. In some communities, benefits obtained from ICD were reported to be the greatest deterrents against unauthorized activity, although law enforcement ranked highest overall. Despite the sensitive nature of exploring unauthorized resource use, management‐relevant insights into the profiles and motivations of unauthorized resource users can be gained from a combination of survey techniques, as adopted here. To reduce unauthorized activity at Bwindi, we suggest ICD benefit the poorest people living in remote areas and near the park boundary by providing affordable alternative sources of forest products and addressing crop raiding. To prevent resentment from driving further unauthorized activity, ICDs should be managed transparently and equitably.

This paper establishes the importance of good governance in improving local livelihoods and support for conservation. The study uses empirical realities from Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, an afromontane Gorilla sanctuary that was recognized by UNESCO in 2005 as a world heritage due to its rich biodiversity. Governance is an important procedural dimension of equity that entails decision making processes and how local people are involved in matters that most affect them. The paper uses a Policy Arrangements Approach to illustrate the procedural dimension of the Justice and Equity Framework. A mixed method approach was used to generate results in this paper. Household surveys, key informant interviews and Focus Group Discussions were employed for data collection. Linear and Multi Logistic Regressions were used to determine the level of significance and relationships that exist between governance, peoples livelihoods and conservation support. Polychoric Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used to generate indices of livelihood improvement and conservation support. Results revealed that meaningful involvement, leadership composition on committees, local capacity, information flow and awareness and accountability significantly influence peoples livelihoods and conservation of Bwindi. Local people are not only concerned about distributive equity in benefit sharing but also the procedural dimension. This entails being part of revenue sharing projects from the design phase to the evaluation phase. The study recommends the use of equity framework in revenue sharing in order to increase greater involvement of local people in decision making processes.

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Purpose: Determining the utilisation of biodegradable solid waste in boosting crop productivity among farmers in Mbarara City. Methodology: Mixed methods were used with simple random sampling and purposive sampling to obtain 111 and 31 respondents respectively - altogether constituting 142 respondents. Data was collected from the respondents using a questionnaire and an interview guide. The study adopted both descriptive and correlational data analysis. Findings: The study identified some practices that were used in managing biodegradable solid waste for application in boosting crop productivity among farmers in Mbarara city. These were communal collection, door-to-door collection, and others like roadside dumping and dustbins. The application of biodegradable solid waste in boosting crop productivity among farmers of Mbarara city was found to be relatively low, notwithstanding the fact that for those who applied the biodegradable solid waste in farming, it increased crops yields. The study further identified compositing of biodegradable solid waste as the main innovative strategy for proper utilization of solid wastes towards crop productivity. This was because the strategy is environmentally friendly at the same time it enriches the soil with both soil and crop growth support nutrients. Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: A strong cooperation between the community and the city council authorities should be cultivated for purposes of enhancing community participation in the management of biodegradable solid waste hence enhancing food crop production in the area. There is also need to explore the opportunities of reducing, reusing, recycling and rethinking and composting in waste management among urban communities to minimize waste and increase economic benefits. Successfully adoption of sustainable methods of waste management by the communities can be done by making awareness programmes simple and accessible to change the mind-set of urban residents to perceive waste as resources rather a problem.

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