Biodiversity assessment for conservation planning in Uganda's forests

Abstract

The Uganda Forest Department recently completed a major national inventory of forest biodiversity, aimed at providing the information necessary to design a representative protected area system for the country. The inventory covered five national parks and a further 60 forest reserves, and involved the collection of data on five indicator taxa of plants and animals. The project involved approximately 100 man-years of work, during which 17,600 plant site records were made, 100,000 trap¬-nights of small mammal work undertaken, 57,000 large moths, 21,000 butterflies and 14,000 birds trapped. The analysis of data generated by the inventory has involved the development of a scoring system, by which the biodiversity and socio-economic values of different sites were compared, and nature conservation priorities established. More than 95 % of species belonging to the five indicator taxa are represented in the present 10 national parks combined with 11 selected forest reserves, and a more complete network of 43 sites would encompass more than 98 % of species. The proposed network of forest Nature Reserves is presently being put in place. Journal of East African Natural History Vol. 88 (1&2) 1999: pp. 59-6