By Derrick Ampereza
Members of the Batwa community in Kanungu district have decried being left out of the revenue-sharing arrangement between the district and the Uganda Wildlife authority yet the money is obtained from the forest which they previously considered as their home.
A revenue sharing scheme was established in 1995 by the government in 20 percent of a park’s revenue is meant to be shared with communities adjacent to the protected areas
The objective of revenue sharing is to provide local communities with an incentive to support conservation, particularly when they might be adversely impacted for example by having their crops raided by wild animals.
In the 1990s, the Ugandan Batwa were evicted from the Bwindi, Mgahinga, and Echuya forests in south-west Uganda by the government and which later gazetted the forests as wildlife parks, primarily for the protection of rare mountain gorillas to attract tourists for revenue.
Some of the Batwa from Kitariro who were evicted from forests say the government should streamline its guidelines on revenue sharing so that they can also benefit
Geoffrey Mahaano one of the Batwa advisors in Kanungu district says they need to benefit from government programs since they accepted to leave the forest which the government is using to earn revenue.
He says instead non-government organizations have helped them more than the government by giving them support through education, and health, among other services.
The Kanungu district chairperson Sam Arineitwe Kajojo when contacted promised to follow up on the matter .
