84 12.11.2 Encargado de los baños Municipales II

The second research question dealt with how the sport hunting policy arrangements around Lake Mburo National Park (LMNP) and Kabwoya and Kaiso-Tonya Game Management Area (KKTGMA) evolved over time and what the driving forces for change were.

While the national sport hunting policy objectives remained the same, the LMNP sport hunting policy arrangement has been a dynamic arrangement over four main periods, characterised by disputes over the benefits, politics of landownership and changed local discourses, thereby reflecting a highly incongruent policy arrangement in terms of the actors and rules dimensions of the policy arrangement. However, in the first period (2001-2003) the policy arrangement dimensions were relatively congruent. Communities were excited about the new opportunity to receive benefits from the hunted animals especially alongside the already existing traditional tourism revenue sharing scheme (TRS) initiated by the Uganda Wildlife Authority in 1996 (Ahebwa et al., 2008). Also, the communities expected that sport hunting would reduce the numbers of wildlife on private land, so they would have fewer problems with crop damage and animal attacks. Thus, benefits were shared among the different stakeholders as specified in the revenue-sharing rules and the communities continued to simply hope that the numbers of wildlife would go down because of the sport hunting. However, in the second period (2003-2008) the arrangement began to experience some incongruence between the rules and actors dimensions, largely fuelled by the politics of landownership. The landowners argued that since they owned the land where wildlife grazes and hunting is practiced, they deserved preferential treatment. Therefore, certain rules, including the revenue-sharing rules, were adjusted in 2003 to include

Although the rules were changed to include landowners in the arrangement, these rules continued to be a source of discontentment.

Similarly, the third period (2008-2012) revealed a total mismatch between the national and local level discourses in terms of what sport hunting is all about. The government, hunting company and community protected areas institutions (CPI – hereafter institutions) continued to perceive sport hunting as a means to derive benefits from wildlife to help change the local residents’ attitudes towards wildlife and to eventually reduce human-wildlife conflicts (especially poaching by the local people). The local people, on the other hand, had a different interpretation of the policy and not only viewed sport hunting as a means to derive financial benefits, but also as a way of decreasing wildlife numbers in order to reduce crop damage and animal attacks. This mismatch in policy interpretation, interestingly, reflects different discourses on human-wildlife conflicts and the role of sport hunting in addressing these conflicts, with one discourse coalition interpreting human-wildlife conflicts as having to reduce poaching, and the other as having to reduce crop damage and attacks by animals. This confusion among stakeholders on this aim of the sport hunting policy has played an important role in the arrangement throughout its development. More so, it perpetuated increasing disputes over the benefits, with land being a critical factor in the debates about sport hunting implementation at the local level. As such, the communities resumed to think of wildlife as a nuisance especially as they were still faced with animal attacks and crop damage. In their view the purpose of sport hunting was merely to receive benefits and lower wildlife numbers. More changes were made in the revenue-sharing rules at the local level and eventually some actors were removed from the arrangement in favour of the association (community based organisations that manage sport hunting benefits and implement community development projects) and the landowners.

Furthermore, in period four (2012 to date), the continued conflicts over the benefits resulted in a total reorganisation of the benefit-sharing rules, including which actors directly receive benefits. This period also witnessed the failed attempt of ‘elite seizure’ of the benefits by larger landowners who are originally from the region but are currently mainly living in the capital city Kampala.

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landowners opposed them because they thought that the group wanted to deprive them of sport hunting revenues. Eventually, new actor coalitions arose based on landownership size: ‘the big landowners’ versus ‘the small landowners’. Related, between 2008-2012 the LMNP landowners argued that they should be given at least 90 per cent of the sport hunting revenue. After negotiations, landowners started receiving 50 per cent of the sport hunting revenue in 2012 following changed benefit-sharing rules to help enhance development at the household level. As sport hunting is mostly conducted on large pieces of land usually owned by the ‘big landowners’, it is, however, likely that they will continue to receive benefits at the expense of the ‘small landowners’ on whose land sport hunting is rarely practised.

In comparison (see Table 6.2), the KKTGMA sport hunting policy arrangement remained stable over the years due to its relative congruency. Following the extension of sport hunting to Kabwoya Wildlife Reserve (KWR, a formal government protected reserve) in 2006, the government and the hunting company (Lake Albert Safaris Limited) incorporated other actors in the arrangement, such as the Hoima District Local Government, Kabwoya and Buseruka sub-counties and the local communities through their association. Generally, the government and the association executive share similar views regarding wildlife protection and agree that unrestricted use of environmental resources can lead to their decline. In comparison to the case in LMNP, landownership did not really play a key role in determining the distribution of benefits in KKTGMA. Because the government allegedly introduced sport hunting here to raise money to enable financing conservation activities in the area (although there is very little proof that hunting income is actually used for conservation), the benefit-sharing rules were stipulated to favour the government, getting 50 per cent of the sport hunting revenue. Nevertheless, a minimal change happened in the rules and actors’ dimensions of the policy arrangement in 2008. First, sport hunting was extended to Kaiso-Tonya Community Wildlife Area (KTCWA, community-owned land) and second, a new actor, Kyangwali sub-county, was included among the sub-counties to receive sport hunting benefits. Further, there was a little incongruence in the rules, resources and actors’ dimensions of the arrangement, as the rules never specified what percentage of direct revenue the new actor would receive as is the case with Kabwoya and Buseruka sub-counties (see Chapter 4). Currently,

funding of social development projects (see Chapter 5 and section 6.2.3 below). But overall, this arrangement experienced few conflicts over the benefits, except regarding the sharing of meat – with claims that UWA and the hunting company sometimes hold back the meat and/or do not distribute it to villages located further away from the areas where hunting takes place. In conclusion, in KKTGAM the arrangement exhibited congruence in the policy arrangement dimensions, first due to the fact that the government and the local leaders share relatively similar views regarding wildlife protection, and second, the politics of landownership were largely absent here. This is because sport hunting was first introduced and is mainly practiced on government- owned land, (although it was later expanded and is also practiced in community owned-land in KTCWA) and thus the government wields more power in terms of decision-making.

Table 6.2: Comparison between the LMNP and KKTGMA sport hunting policy arrangements

LMNP KKTGMA

 Hunting on privately owned land  Evolved in 4 periods

 Changes in all the PAA dimensions

 Mismatch in discourses between the government and hunting company on the one and hand and local people on the other

 Disputes over the benefits (including ‘elite seizure’ of the benefits)

 Changing community discourses on wildlife  Community more active in the debate over time  Strong influence of the politics of landownership

 Hunting in government-controlled reserve and on community-owned land

 Relatively stable arrangement throughout the years  Only actor dimension visibly changed

 Relative match in policy interpretation between all actors

 Few disputes over the benefits (except dismay regarding the sharing of meat)

 Community less active in the debate

 Politics of landownership largely stable as the government is dominant and owns the land where hunting mostly takes place