Results and recommendations

"...where funds are short, it is often tempting to impose a programme by official edict. Without necessary consultation and negotiation with the people, failure is almost certain to result." (Martin, 1986; Zimbabwe CAMPFIRE Programme).

Forest products are usually grouped by foresters into two categories for forest management purposes: major forest products (timber, fuelwood or other wooden products) and minor forest products (all non-wooden products such as grass, resins, fruits, etc.) (Osmaston, 1968).

Results and recommendations of this study are presented first for "minor forest products" (which despite the term, have major value to local people), secondly for bamboo, and finally for wood use (blacksmiths, carved wooden handicrafts, beer boats, building poles, bean stakes). These are part of an ongoing process of interaction between the rural community surrounding Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and the park management, with DTC project staff at the interface between the two groups (see Wild and Mutebi 1996, Working paper 5).

The reasons for presenting the results in this way can be justified as follows.

1. Specialist user groups within rural communities surrounding the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park can form an important interface between the National Park or DTC staff and the rural community in general. They have a good knowledge of plant resources. They also represent groups of resource users with a common interest in beekeeping, traditional medicines, basketry or other uses, all of whom are recognized for their skills within communities and by the village Resistance Council system. Many are already members of organizations established on community initiative (e.g. the Bakiga stretcher-bearer society, ekyibinachengozi), or through the combined interests of the community and Ugandan government departments (e.g. traditional medical practitioners (TMPs) and traditional birth attendants (TBAs)), or through interaction between the community, National Parks and DTC staff (e.g. bee-keepers associations). In addition, the rural population around Bwindi Impenetrable Forest is large (c. 100,000 people) and growing, whilst the National Park has relatively few staff. Dealing with resource users by specialist user group enables interaction and more focussed discussion with smaller interest groups within parishes.
2. Although a non-wood "minor forest product", bamboo use is presented separately because it is so important to many people, rather than to a few specialist users. It is found within a localized area of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, has high growth rates compared to most tree species, and because of the low species diversity of woody vegetation within bamboo forest. All these are factors which influence management recommendations.
3. Although results are presented separately for each category of wood use (e.g. beer boats, bean stakes, etc.), recommendations are made for all categories of wood together. This takes into account competing uses for the same tree species, and the cumulative effects of different categories of wood or tree use on forest. Due to the slow growth rates and long generation times of hardwood trees, and the devastating effects of pitsawing on Bwindi Forest in the past, timber harvesting is included in this section.

Minor forest products and specialist user groups

Edible wild plant resources

Edible wild plants characterize disturbed forest sites, and represent a resource seasonally used as dietary supplement or as a subsistence source of income from the sale of fruits such as Myrianthus holstii (omufe) or edible fungi. Few species are used, and the impact of collection is low. It is recommended that collection be allowed in multiple-use areas.

Photo 9. Edible Myrianthus holstii (omufe) fruit.			Photo 10. Lentinus prolifer (ebishanja) edible fungus.

The most important wild plant foods to people are Myrianthus holstii (omufe) (Photo 9), two Dioscorea species (ebikwa and ebihama) with tubers that can be eaten without detoxification, and four types of edible fungi (Lentinus prolifer (ebishanja) (Photo 10) and three species identified by local name only (ensabili, obushokore and a mushroom, obutusi) (Table 3).

Lentinus prolifer fungi are more common where forest has been cleared for agriculture, and grow mainly on dead Polyscias fulva (omungo) wood. Together with ensabili and obutusi fungi, they are usually found and gathered when weeding sorghum and millet fields. Lentinus prolifer is a particularly popular and tasty food source, "as good as meat". These wild foods are useful supplements during famine periods, and a source of subsistence income from the (seasonal) sale of Myrianthus holstii fruits and edible fungi in local markets. With the exception of Dioscorea tubers, gathering is seasonal and practised only by the poorest sector of the community, except perhaps during famine periods. Efugwe (Urticaceae), a common understorey nettle in the bamboo zone is gathered from the forest, but edible leaves are usually gathered from "weeds" (e.g. Amaranthus spp., dodo) in fields. Physalis and Solanum nigrum are also found in fallow fields and disturbed areas outside the forest. Use of Myrianthus (omufe) fruits encourages conservation of the female tree of this dioecious species when forest is cleared for agriculture, and Myrianthus trees are a significant woody component of agricultural fields, until they are pollarded and finally chopped out for fuelwood.

Removal of Dioscorea tubers usually kills the individual plants collected. Although the tubers are long-lived and slow-growing, removal of tubers was only observed in two sites on the forest margin during this survey (three tubers in Buhoma, two in Ishasha) and is considered only to have localized impact. This is because:

1. harvesting is selective, with rejection of small or very large (and therefore woody and unpalatable) tubers;
2. gathering is low-intensity (restricted to famine periods or by a small sector of the population not self-sufficient in cultivated foods, particularly the Batwa);
3. there is regeneration from wind-dispersed Dioscorea seed blown in from adjacent zones or from smaller plants.

Beekeeping and honey collection

Beekeeping is a form of land-use which is dependent on and can complement forest conservation. There are two conservation concerns about beekeeping, however. First, the possibility of fires associated with honey harvesting, and second, the felling of Faurea saligna trees for wooden hives.

The possibility of runaway fires can be addressed through the formation of beekeeping societies, so that rather than being a source of forest fires, beekeeping societies will bring strong social pressure to bear against arson or the careless use of fires.

Hive construction materials and designs are being used in the DTC area that provide an alternative to Faurea wooden hives. There is an opportunity here for constructive intervention and local income generation through the formation of beekeeping societies, improved hive construction and marketing of honey.

Honey-hunting and beekeeping are important seasonal activities in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest area. African honey bees (Apis mellifera adansonii, enjokyi) are kept in beehives, with two varieties recognized, the aggressive brown ekitaka and the darker enyumbu. These bees provide the main source of honey.

Honey-hunters (particularly Batwa) get honey from wild hives of these bees and from a number of ground- or tree-nesting stingless bees (Trigonidae) known as ebihura. Six types of Trigonid bees are recognized: obugashu, obwiza, obuganza and obuhumbamga, all of which nest in hollow tree stems or branches, obugazale bees which nest underground as well as in trees, and obwahashi which only nest underground.

Beekeeping is also an important seasonal activity for Bakiga agriculturists, who use traditional beehives constructed either of timber or bamboo, or woven from forest climbers (Table 4, Photo 11, page 18). Top-bar hives, common in Kenya and Tanzania, are not used. Honey is usually taken from the hives twice a year.

Batwa people in particular, as well as beekeepers, have a rich knowledge of bees, plants favoured by bees and hills that provide the best sites for placing of productive hives. Forest plants are an important source of nectar and pollen to bees, and also provide resin for Trigonid beehive construction. Forest tree species susceptible to heart-rot are also important sites for wild bee nests. Some 21 species are recorded as favoured by bees as a source of nectar or as nesting sites or by Trigonid bees as a source of resin for nest construction.

Photo 11. Woven hive made from forest climbers and banana fibre, Ishasha area.

Beekeepers and honey-hunters also know which plants have toxic pollen, producing honey causing diarrhoea, such as pollen from the giant lobelia, Lobelia gibberoa (entomvu) and the forest climber Urera hypselodendron (omushe), and that honey from some Trigonid bees also has this effect. Much of this knowledge is of use not only to beekeeping, but also to forest ecology in general. Trigonid stingless bees, for example, are valuable specialist pollinators of certain forest tree species, yet most knowledge about this important aspect of forest tree biology has not been documented by formally trained scientists, but is unrecorded knowledge held by Batwa honey-hunters.

An observation of many beekeepers in the northern sector of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest also worth following up is that there is an association between the establishment of tea plantations and a marked drop in honey production. This is attributed by some beekeepers to insecticides used to spray the tea bushes and needs further investigation.

Areas of forest with high densities of prolifically flowering trees (e.g. Faurea saligna), shrubs (e.g. Brillantaisia, Mimulopsis in valleys) and climbers (e.g. Sericostachys scandens in disturbed montane forest, and an unidentified species, orumaga, Malphigiaceae in lowland forest) are well known to beekeepers, and hills near to these areas are favoured for placing of hives.

There are four other reasons why forests are favoured places to site hives in comparison to putting hives in fields or near to homesteads:

1. hives are away from the smoke that is often present in fields due to people burning cleared vegetation;
2. the hives are protected from wind in forest, but not in fields. This facilitates movement of bees to and from the hives;
3. hives can be hidden in the forest away from the general public and are therefore less susceptible to theft or spells placed by jealous people on the hives of a man with many high-yielding hives;
4. keeping hives away from the homestead prevents family members being stung.

Butynski (1984) encountered hives in 4% (five 1 km² blocks) of Bwindi Forest. Most of these were placed, as they are today, in the bamboo zone, above 2300 m.

Concern was expressed over the following impacts:

1. it was thought that the use of fire when gathering honey may have been responsible for most of the fires in Bwindi Forest;
2. on three occasions, Butynski (1984) found large trees felled to obtain honey from wild hives;
3. large trees were felled for construction of hives and 3 - 5 smaller trees felled when making a clearing around each hive.

These are valid concerns, which need to be addressed. Fire is now the major threat to conservation of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Forest fires during the very dry period November 1991 - March 1992 were not caused by beekeepers, but were due to runaway fires from outside the forest, or from deliberate arson. Fire is certainly a threat to beehives kept within the forest, and in at least one case (Wild pers. comm., 1992), beekeepers tried to prevent one of these runaway fires.

From discussions with beekeepers at a meeting at Ruhija (April 1992), it would appear that beekeepers are genuinely prepared to prevent runaway fires and as a group would be an important influence against arson or careless use of fire.

Mwesigye (1991) recorded 63 beekeepers with a total of 469 hives around the southern sector of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Large trees (>30 cm dbh) are felled for hive construction, and in the Rihija area, the majority of hives (93.5%, 106) measured by Mwesigye (1991) were made from Faurea saligna, and most of the remainder (4.5% (5)) from Polyscias fulva wood. It would be ironic if increasing numbers of beekeepers felled the very trees (Faurea saligna) which provide one of the major nectar sources in the forest.

Although wooden hives from Faurea can reportedly last for over 20 years, hives poorly protected from rain are said to last 5 - 8 years; those from Alangium chinense (omukofe) 6 years when covered, 4 years uncovered; Polyscias fulva, 5 years when covered; Albizia gummifera, 4 years when covered, 2 years when exposed to rain. Woven hives, if well constructed, can last 5 - 6 years, and if not protected from rain, only 1 - 2 years.

Although no data are available on growth rates of Faurea saligna, it is likely that the resource replaces itself faster than the rate of deterioration of hives, whilst this is not the case for hives woven from bamboo, papyrus or some climbers.

During this survey, woven hives were recorded in the Ishasha (forest climbers) and Katojo bamboo (Arundinaria alpina) areas. Only two trees were recorded felled to get to wild hives: a Carapa grandiflora (omuruguya) of 70 cm dbh felled for Trigonid bee (ebihura) honey, and a Markhamia lutea (omulembwe) of 48 cm dbh.