Community Involvement in Participatory Forest Monitoring around Kibale National Park of Western Uganda

A study on Participatory Forest Monitoring (PFM) and Natural Forest Restoration (NFR) was carried out in the communities residing around the Kibale National Park (KNP), Uganda. The research was conducted from June to August 2024 among 394 respondents, adopting a cross-sectional research design to explore mechanisms for scaling up Participatory Forest Monitoring. The results revealed that participation in PFM improved income at the household level directly addressing household needs especially income for school fees and other needs by 79.9% (r=0.799, P<0.05). Enhancing PFM activities and practices, the Uganda Wildlife Authority Forest Absorbing Carbon Emission (UWA-FACE) project is encouraged to consider electric fencing as an addition to existing PFM benefits (23.40%), increase the remuneration of a daily wage for PFM recipients (28.6%) and PFM could consider compensating farmers who lose livelihoods (29.9%). The findings indicated that PFM can effectively restore natural forests in the study area and enhance income and community livelihoods. There is a need to invest more funds in PFM activities.