Background: In Uganda, nearly 1.4 million people are currently food insecure, with the prevalence of food energy deficiency at the country level standing at 37%. Local farmers are vulnerable to starvation in times of environmental stress, drought and floods because of dependence on rain-fed agriculture. Accordingly, the farmer's means of increasing food production has always been an expansion of area under cultivation from virgin and fragile areas, especially wetlands. Consequently, Uganda has lost about 11,268 km 2 of wetland, representing a loss of 30% of the country's wetlands from 1994 to 2009. While the environmental importance of wetland ecosystems is widely recognized, their contribution to household food security is still hardly explored. In this paper an assessment of the contribution of wetland resources to household food security and factors influencing use of wetland resources in Uganda are reported. Methods: A number of livelihood tools in food security assessment including focus group discussions, key informant interviews, direct observations and a household questionnaire survey, were used to collect the data. A total of 247 respondents from areas adjacent to wetlands were involved in the household questionnaire survey conducted in three agro-ecological zones that are frequently characterized as food insecure. Results: The findings indicate that about 83% of the households experienced food insecurity. The main indicators of food insecurity were low harvest (30.9%) and when people buy locally grown food items (18%). Most households felt food secure when they had perennial crops (43.2%) in their gardens, or adequate money to buy food (23.9%). The prevalence of food insecurity was significantly lower among households with older and better educated household heads, but also among households located in Lake Victoria Crescent and South western farmlands agroecological zones, but significantly higher among households that were female headed, larger and participate in collection of wetland resources. Over 80% of the respondents reported that wetland resources provide products and services that contribute enormously to their household food security. Besides, they also indirectly contribute to food security by providing services that foster food production such as weather modifications and nutrient retention. Households with older heads and those that reside in the Lake Victoria Crescent agro-ecological zone when compared to counterparts in the Lake Kyoga agro-ecological zone are more likely to have a higher dependence on wetlands for food security. Conclusions: With increasing population around the wetlands, coupled with land shortage and weather variations, households with limited options will continue to generally rely on wetlands for food security and income for sustaining their livelihoods unless alternative livelihood options are provided. There is thus a need to design appropriate food production technologies that ensure sustainable use of wetland resources for food security.

Wetlands provide food and non-food products that contribute to income and food security in Uganda. This study determined the economic value of wetland resources and their contribution to food security in the three agroecological zones of Uganda. The values of wetland resources were estimated using primary and secondary data. Market price, Productivity, and Contingent valuation methods were used to estimate the value of wetland resources. The per capita value of fish was approximately US$ 0.49 person−1. Fish spawning was valued at approximately US$ 363,815 year−1, livestock pastures at US$ 4.24 million, domestic water use at US$ 34 million year−1, and the gross annual value added by wetlands to milk production at US$ 1.22 million. Flood control was valued at approximately US$ 1,702,934,880 hectare−1 year−1 and water regulation and recharge at US$ 7,056,360 hectare−1 year−1. Through provision of grass for mulching, wetlands were estimated to contribute to US$ 8.65 million annually. The annual contribution of non-use values was estimated in the range of US$ 7.1 million for water recharge and regulation and to US$ 1.7 billion for flood control. Thus, resource investment for wetlands conservation is economically justified to create incentives for continued benefits.

With increasing population, coupled with land shortage and weather variations, wetlands in Uganda have continued to face degradation due to mainly conversion for agricultural, industrial and settlement purposes. The objective of this study was to determine the spatial and temporal wetland use/cover changes and local perceptions attributed to these changes. The study utilized three sets of ortho-rectified and cloud free Landsat TM/ETM+/MSS temporal images (30 m) of 1986, 2000 and 2011. The classification procedures were carried out using an Integrated Land and Water Information System (ILWIS) software version 3.7. A wetland classification system for Uganda developed by the National Biomass Study, 2003 was adopted to describe the wetland use/cover types. The classified images were validated in a ground truthing exercise using Global Positioning System (GPS) to improve on the classification accuracy. Key informant interviews and focus group discussions were conducted with communities adjacent to the wetlands in each of three of the ten Ugandan agro-ecological zones to determine the underlying drivers of wetland use/cover changes, while household interviews generated information on local perceptions of the changes. Significant changes were mainly observed in wetland use/cover between 1986 and 2011. Major factors responsible for these changes were subsistence farming due to intensification of growing paddy rice in Kyoga plains, an influx of migrants who accessed wetlands for daily subsistence (livestock grazing) in South western farmlands and proximity to urban centres in the Lake Victoria Crescent. In all the sampled agro-ecological zones, increased crop farming in wetlands was due to changing opportunities created by existent large markets for wetland crops. Majority (60%) of the local people perceived wetlands in their proximity to have undergone high degradation within the last 10 years, and to have declined in quantity and quality of vegetation, soil fertility and water levels. There was a noticeable variation across the sampled agro-ecological zones, with the highest proportion of local communities perceiving degradation being in Kyoga plains (76%), followed by Lake Victoria crescent (63%) and South-western farmlands (41%). Locally perceived threats to wetlands were mainly from crop growing that accounted for 33% of the frequency of mentioned threats, collection of wetland resources (30%), and prolonged floods and droughts (12%). This study confirms the importance of economic opportunities from new market outlets and migration in its various forms as key factors in land use change, especially at timescales of a couple of decades.

Uganda has policies and laws that can foster legal timber trade. This chapter reviews the key sources of timber and current production channels in Uganda. It describes policies and laws governing timber trade and challenges encountered in the quest for legal timber trade. We also show the underlying and proximate causes of illegal timber trade and its impacts on livelihoods, environment, and economy. The sources of timber in Uganda were previously the government-owned forest plantations and natural forests which have dwindled. There is a timber deficit and this has proliferated illegal trade in timber which affects national and local government revenue and forest degradation. Formal, informal, and a mix of formal and informal systems are the main channels of timber production. The responsible agencies that are mandated to ensure legal timber trade are engulfed by institutional weaknesses and socio-cultural and political landscape that is riddled with dishonesty, impunity and lack of transparency. There is need for more engagements to build momentum for promoting legal timber trade and enforcement of rule of law. This can be attained through improved interand intra-institutional collaboration, improved accountability and creating incentives for legal timber trade.

The Chambura Gorge, part of the Queen Elizabeth National Park (QENP), is completely covered by a forest which so far has not been exploited and whose species, composition and structure are barely known. It was therefore of interest to analyse this area as a typical example of a primary natural forest and as a peculiar habitat inside the QENP ecosystem. The forest cover has a typical structure, distributed into layers, but the lower layer is locally poor of saplings belonging to a possible cohort of regeneration. This process is likely to be observable on a wider scale of analysis. None of the species reach their potential maximum height, as measured in other areas and in a typical rain forest. However, the vegetation of Chambura Gorge is very representative of the local edaphic conditions and microclimate. In the structural analysis no relationships were found between the diameters and heights of the observed trees, if considered all together. If considered individually, only the most abundant species, Cleistopholis patens, showed any relationship between diameter and height.