Uganda is a poor, land-locked country in central-east Africa. Called the Pearl of Africa, it is endowed with a rich diversity of natural ecosystems ranging from tropical forest, savannah, wetlands and great lakes to montane forest, alpine meadows and peat bogs, topped by snowcapped peaks. Lots of sun, ample rains and rich volcanic soils in the western and eastern highlands historically permitted two growing seasons per year.

Abundant food and increasing access to modern medicine has enabled Uganda's human population to grow from 1.7 million in 1900, to 15 million, in 1986, to 39 million, in 2017. Demographers project that Uganda’s population will reach 62 million by 2030, only 13 years from now. Outside of national parks that cover 16% of Uganda, almost all land has been converted to grow crops and raise livestock. Human population growth has resulted in an increasingly rapid decline of the land-bank available for food production, which is compounded by the repeated sub-division of household farm-lands as children inherit their parent’s property.

This land shortage is encouraging the conversion of the last natural ecosystems outside of protected areas, and agricultural encroachment is increasingly nibbling away at the edges of parks and reserves. As climate change and deforestation alter rainfall timing and quantity in unpredictable ways, Ugandan families are facing food shortages and declines in agricultural income. If nothing is done Uganda risks a downward spiral of declining agricultural production, reduced food and income security, and the very real possibility of violent civil unrest as the country’s different ethnic groups vie with one another for access to dwindling farmlands.

In Uganda, WCS is keen to avoid the irrevocable conversion of the last remaining corridors that ecologically link the nation’s parks and reserves, and the de facto de-gazetting of the protected areas themselves, as farmers search for lands to feed their families. The solution is not just better park management; rather, it is helping farmers increase sustainable farm yields and income and reduce the incentive to encroach on protected lands and cut down forests.

With support from WCS, villages in the Murchison-Semliki region, in western Uganda, are showing a way to avoid this downward spiral. This region contains the last remaining natural forest in the country found outside of protected areas. These forests form corridors connecting the national parks, and are vital habitat for some 300 resident chimpanzees and endemic bird species. Between 2006 and 2010, WCS science showed that farmers were clearing nearly 8,000 ha of forest each year in the Murchison-Semliki Landscape. Yet forest clearing was not leading to improved livelihoods for local people, and there was a risk that the forest could disappear with people being no better off as a result. Farmers continued to clear forests because they lacked knowledge and capital to increase yields and farm income on their current holdings, and most did not make the connection that clearing forest exacerbates the problem of unpredictable harvests caused by climate change.

Higher yield climate-smart farming involves zero tillage and mulching organic material such as crop residue, and requires about US $116 in annual investment above the $150/acre needed for conventional farming. To promote adoption, WCS provides farmers who sign conservation agreements committing to not clear their forests with training and with access to capital through loans from community mutual savings banks. Farmers receive training on both climate-smart farming practices and on how to establish and manage member-supported community mutual savings banks. These banks are membership organizations where farmer-members contribute what limited funds they have to the community bank, which then loans money to its members at below market interest rates.

Farmers who have completed the training and have adopted climate-smart farming have seen their maize yields increase from 700kg to 2000kg while preserving soil fertility and rainfall use efficiency. That yields increased 3-fold while the costs of these new farming practices only double compared to conventional farming provides a powerful incentive for other farmers to participate in WCS’ program. In addition to providing start-up costs to help farmers convert to climate-smart practices, the community mutual savings banks provide cash-strapped communities with a source of capital to invest in their operations, set up businesses and diversify income sources. This has been especially beneficial to women, who are more likely than men to invest in crop processing and marketing, improving rural-urban terms of trade and adding value to farm products.

In a nutshell, analysis of forest cover change using the Global Forest Watch interactive mapper shows that WCS’ approach works: deforestation has measurably declined in areas under conservation farming thereby protecting key wildlife corridors and demonstrating that participating farmers are complying with their conservation agreements.