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Abstract
In 2006 the Ugandan government attempted to give a large portion of Mabira Forest Reserve to the Sugar Corporation of Uganda Limited. The government argued the rainforest “give away” would contribute to economic development and create the opportunity for biofuel production. The proposal faced massive opposition from Ugandan civil society, which countered that deforestation would increase hunger and poverty. In order to help resolve the debate, this study examines the livelihoods of villagers living near a sugar factory and forest reserve in rural Uganda. We interviewed 821 households seeking to explore possible links between poverty and participation in sugarcane production at both the village and household level. Villages closest to the factory appeared wealthier than villages closer to the reserve. However, households pursued different livelihood strategies and invested in different components of wealth. It is therefore unclear whether the benefits of sugar or biofuel production outweigh the environmental costs of forest loss.
Acknowledgements
We thank A. Hannington Fani, A. Geoffrey, and O. Katwesige for their help conducting interviews, and are grateful to K. Grounds and U. Zommers for entering data. We also appreciate the suggestions provided by two anonymous readers. Research was supported by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, and the Canadian Centennial Scholarship Fund.
Notes
1. Abbott, Sugar: A Bittersweet History.
2. De Keyser and Hongo, “Farming for Energy for Better Livelihoods in Southern Africa”; Service, “Another Biofuels Drawback.”
3. Child, “Civil Society in Uganda.”, 248–249.
4. C. Obore, “Why I Decided to Give Mabira Away,” Daily Monitor, April 16, 2007, http://www.lexisnexis.com/
5. The majority of KSWL employees live on the KSWL estate, or in villages within walking or cycling distance from KSWL. Thus we expect differences in wealth between villages based on distance from KSWL.
6. FAO, “The Energy and Agriculture Nexus.”, 76
7. Amigun, Sigamoney, and Blottnitz, “Commercialisation of Biofuel Industry.”
8. Amigun, Sigamoney, and Blottnitz, “Commercialisation of Biofuel Industry.” Blessing Mangoyana, “Bioenergy for Sustainable Development”; Bringezu et al., “Towards Sustainable Production and Use of Resources”; FAO, Food Energy and Climate; UN Energy, Sustainable Bioenergy; Wang, Me, and Huo, “Life-cycle Energy and Greenhouse Gas Emission.”
9. Mullera et al. “Some Insights in the Effect of Growing Bio-energy”; Robertson et al. “Sustainable Biofuels Redux”; WWF, Sugar and the Environment.
10. Briggs, Uganda: The Bradt Travel Guide.
11. M. Mutagamba, “Cabinet Paper on Giving Mabira Forest to SCOUL.” New Vision, April 2, 2007, http://allafrica.com/stories/200704030561.html
12. M. Mutagamba, “Cabinet Paper on Giving Mabira Forest to SCOUL.” New Vision, April 2, 2007, http://allafrica.com/stories/200704030561.html
13. “Deaths in Uganda Forest Protest.” BBC News, April 12, 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6548107.stm
14. L. Namubiru, “Uganda: Is Biofuel the Solution to Our Energy Problem.” New Vision, February 8, 2008, http://allafrica.com/stories/200802110019.html
15. M. Mutagamba, “Cabinet Paper on Giving Mabira Forest to SCOUL.” New Vision, April 2, 2007, http://allafrica.com/stories/200704030561.html
16. “Why I Support Mabira give-away–Museveni.” New Vision, April 18, 2007, http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/12/560612
17. “Ugandan President Says Controversial Forest Conversion not Resolved.” Daily Monitor, December 21, 2007.
18. “Poverty, not Investors, is Mabira's Biggest Enemy.” New Vision, May 9, 2007, http://allafrica.com/stories/200705090984.html. The Mehta Group is the company that owns SCOUL.
19. D. Howden, “African Forest under Threat from Sugar Cane Plantation,” The Independent, July 10, 2007, http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/african-forest-under-threat-from-sugar-cane-plantation-456601.html
20. H. Bogere and M. Nalugo, “Police File Murder Charges over Mabira Forest Demonstrations,” The Daily Monitor, April 16, 2007, http://www.lexisnexis.com/
21. F. Nakhooda, “Sugar Companies Have Answer to Fuel Shortages,” New Vision, June 12, 2008, http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/459/633240
22. F. Nakhooda, “Sugar Companies Have Answer to Fuel Shortages,” New Vision, June 12, 2008, http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/459/633240
23. “Cabinet Plots Fresh Mabira Giveaway,” Daily Monitor, June 26, 2008, http://www.lexisnexis.com/
24. Reynolds, The Chimpanzees of Budongo Forest, 9.
25. Ogendo and Obiero, “East African Sugar Industry.”
26. Mwavu and Witkowski, “Land-Use and Cover Changes (1988–2002) around Budongo Forest Reserve.” The figures quoted include data about sugarcane cultivated by KSWL and by outgrowers; private farmers that grow and sell sugarcane to the factory at a rate of 40,000 Ugandan shillings per tonne of sugarcane.
27. “Uganda to Sell off Sugar Works.” BBC News, March 11, 2002, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1867484.stm
28. Gerard Harel, a manager at KSWL, pers. comm.
29. “Museveni Outlines Priorities in State-of-the-Nation Address,” New Vision, June 4, 2009. http://www.lexisnexis.com/
30. Uganda Bureau of Statistics, Spatial Trends of Poverty and Inequality.
31. Uganda Bureau of Statistics and the International Livestock Research Institute, Nature, Distribution and Evolution of Poverty.
32. Reynolds, The Chimpanzees of Budongo Forest, 11.
33. Lauridsen, “Workers in a Forest.”
34. Ellis, Rural Livelihoods and Diversity.
35. Ellis, Rural Livelihoods and Diversity.
36. Wagle, Multidimensional Poverty Measurement.
37. Pouw, “Food Priorities and Poverty.”
38. Ellis and Bahiigwa, “Livelihoods and Rural Poverty Reduction in Uganda.”, 1001
39. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure verified the sampling adequacy for the analysis, KMO = 0.715, and KMO values for individual items were > 0.611, above the acceptable limit of 0.5 (Field, Discovering Statistics Using SPSS). Bartlett's test of sphericity x2 (759) = 1119.680, p = 0.000, indicated that correlations between items were sufficiently large for PCA. An initial analysis was run to obtain eigenvalues for each component in the data. Two components had eigenvalues over Kaiser's criterion of 1, and in combination explained 57.07% of the variance.
40. Zommers and Macdonald, “Protected Areas as Frontiers for Migration.”
41. Zommers and Macdonald, “Protected Areas as Frontiers for Migration.”
42. Donner and Telles, “Mobile Banking and Economic Development”; Mendoza and Thelen, “Innovations to Make Markets More Inclusive.”
43. Bayes, “Infrastructure and Rural Development.”
44. Ureta, “Mobilising Poverty?”
45. WRI, The Wealth of the Poor.
46. Evans, “Economic Impact of Demand for Ethanol.”
47. Martino et al., “Environment for Development.”
48. “More NFA Managers Resign Over Mabira,” The Monitor, March 25, 2007. http://www.lexisnexis.com/
49. Pender et al., “Development Pathways and Land Management.”, 786
50. Rist et al., “Hunter Reporting of Catch.”
51. Ejigu, “Toward Energy and Livelihoods Security.”