Forests, livelihoods and poverty alleviation: the case of Uganda
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The value of forests to the livelihoods of poor people has been under discussion for about 15 years. There is growing interest in the roles that forests play in supporting the poor, reducing their vulnerability to economic and environmental shocks, and reducing poverty itself. However, these debates have gone on largely among forestry researchers, while policy-makers in key non-natural resource ministries – such as those of finance, planning or local government and others responsible f or poverty reduction – are often unaware of forests’ contribution towards poverty reduction. At the same time, forestry ministries are only beginning to face the challenge of demonstrating the ways in which forests contribute to poverty reduction. In most countries, very few data are available to illustrate how forests contribute to the livelihoods of poor households. Poverty reports tend to underestimate the contribution of forests – and off-farm natural resources in general – to live lihoods, while forestry reporting is typically in terms of the physical resource and its status and extent. Such reporting sheds no light on the contributions made by forests to the lives of the poor.