Mount Elgon National Park
Mt Elgon was declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2005.[1]
There is a carbon offsetting initiative on Mt Elgon via the Global Improvement Group (which receives support from the US Forest Service) that businesses and individuals can purchase credits from.[1] As identified in a report by Chris Lang and Timothy Byakola, the Ugandan Wildlife Authority in partnership with the Forests Absorbing Carbon-dioxide Emissions (FACE) Foundation has been planting trees on disputed Indigenous lands within the National Park since the early 2000s.[2]
Action for Benet Empowerment – Kokunda Sylvia
Email: kokundasylvia@yahoo.co.uk
Mt Elgon Benet Indigenous Ogiek Group – Alex Yesho
Email: arapsamsonyeshoalex@gmail.com.
Benet Lobby Group.
Email: BenetLobbyGroup@yahoo.com
The Mt Elgon National Park General Management Plan for 2022 lists the following stakeholders and their contributions to park management:
- International Union for Conservation of Nature: Promote policy implementation, biodiversity conservation, natural resources governance, and nature-based solutions for Livelihood support.
- UNESCO: Promote Biodiversity conservation, promotion of Man and Biodiversity principles.
- Conservation through Public Health: Promotion of biodiversity conservation and livelihood support
- Mount Elgon Stakeholders Forum: Lobbying and advocacy for Mount Elgon conservation, a platform for discussing issues concerning the management of Mount Elgon.
- ECOTRUST: Promotion of alternative community livelihoods
- Lake Victoria Management Project: Water resources management
- World Conservation Society: Capacity building, research
- ARCOS Network: Support for mountain conservation, advocacy for conservation.
- Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment: Lobbying and advocacy, governance
- Campaign for Conservation: Capacity building, conservation awareness.
- Action Aid: Capacity building, community mobilization
- World Wildlife Fund: Tourism support, capacity building, resource mobilization
- Nature Uganda: Promotion of birding, capacity building of staff in Birding, conservation of bird habitats
- Wildlife Club of Uganda: Conservation Awareness
- Forest Stewardship Council: Forest certification, capacity building
- FACE the future: Carbon marketing
Mt. Elgon National Park Office.
Phone: +256 454 433170 /// Mobile: +256 772 674063
Email: menpuwa@yahoo.
Uganda Wildlife Authority
Address: P.O. Box 3530 Plot 7 Kira Road, Kamwokya Kampala, Uganda
Website: http://www.ugandawildlife.org
Email: info@wildlife.go.ug.
Ministry of Environment and Water
Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife & Antiquities
The Global Environment Fund (GEF), as implemented through the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), financed a total of $82,014,000 towards the park in 2020. This funding project titled ‘Promoting integrated landscape management approach for the conservation of the Mount Elgon ecosystem in Eastern Uganda’ seeks to “transition the Mt. Elgon region to a sustainable, biodiverse, climate-resilient, integrated landscape with efficient coffee and staple crops (maize, banana, and Irish potato) value and supply chain.[1]”
In the Mt Elgon National Park General Management Plan for 2022, the United Nations Development Program, the United Nations Environment Program, the US Agency for International Development, and Food and Agriculture Organisation are all listed as stakeholders in the provision of financial resources.
Mt. Elgon National Park (MENP) covers an area of 1,121 km2. It is located in Eastern Uganda and is surrounded by the Bukwo, Kween, Kapchorwa, Bulambuli, Sironko, Mbale, Bududa, and Namisindwa districts. Mt. Elgon was first gazetted as a forest park in 1938.[1]In 1968, following Ugandan independence in 1962, Mount Elgon’s status was changed to a State Central Forest Reserve. It remained so under the management of the Forest Department, with several relatively minor changes in designation, until 1993 when its status was upgraded to a National Park. During the period from 1938 - 1993, the park was managed primarily for the protection of its water catchment values and limited exploitation of its timber resources by commercial harvesting operations and pit-sawyers. Since 1993, the National Park has been administered under Uganda wildlife laws and regulations, including the Uganda Wildlife Act 2019. To further increase its conservation status, Mt. Elgon National Park was designated as a Man and Biosphere (MAB) Reserve in June 2005.[2]
The Benet Peoples are part of the original inhabitants of Mt. Elgon who were earlier evicted from the then Mt. Elgon Forest in 1983 by the Government before it was turned into Mt. Elgon National Park. The Government eventually compensated the Benet with 6,000 hectares of Mt. Elgon forest land. However, during the land distribution, it was found that the majority of the beneficiaries did not belong to the Benet community.[3] The Government, through the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), continued to violently evict the Benet from the Park between 1990 and 2004. The Benet took their grievances to the Ugandan High Court and in October 2005, the High Court adopted a consent judgment, between the affected Benet community, the Uganda Wildlife Authority, and the Attorney-General, which declared that the Benet were the "historical and indigenous inhabitants" of the National Park. The ruling stated that the Benet should be allowed to "carry out agricultural activities" in the areas to which they have historical claim. However, the Ugandan Government has failed to implement the judgment. Consequently, UWA - which agreed to the consent judgment - has on several occasions continued to violently evict the Benet, forcing the President of Uganda to intervene. In 2011, Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni directed UWA to allow Benet to temporarily settle in the park until a permanent solution to their problem is found. But to date, there has been no solution to their troubles. Over 1,000 Benet remain in Mt. Elgon National Park, with no official recognition of their ancestral rights.[4]
[2] https://ugandawildlife.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/MT-ELGON-NATIONAL-PARK-GENERAL-MANAGEMENT-PLAN-2022.pdf.
Historical changes in conservation status to the lands now known as Mt. Elgon National Park have never been done with the Benet’s consultation, Free and Prior Informed Consent, or with adequate provision of compensation. Despite the substantial efforts of Benet communities to resist the encroachment of Park Management on their lands, access to the Mount Elgon region has become increasingly constricted. Benet communities were evicted and forcibly resettled from the region and by the time Mount Elgon Forest was gazetted as the Mount Elgon National Park in 1992, these communities had been broadly dispossessed of their land, now governed by the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA).
Violent abuses against the Benet have increased since the major evictions of the 1990s and 2000s. Dozens of shootings, rapes, and assaults have been committed against the Benet but no serious legal action has ever been taken against the assailants, even after incidents have been reported to the police and Soroti office of the Uganda Human Rights Commission.
Many Benet community members have been shot by UWA employees while attempting to uphold their rights to graze and farm on their lands. Moses Maikut Chekwaner was shot and badly injured by the UWA in March 2014 while he was farming outside of the National Park boundary. Two people were shot dead in Bukwo district while grazing their cattle under the permission that had been granted to them before the elections.
In 2018, an amended Wildlife Act passed the Ugandan Parliament, increasing the power of the UWA to restrict access to Benet communities and levy fines. Following these changes, there were additional attacks on Benet people on their lands, including that on a boy named Alfred Cheratta, who was beaten to death by rangers from the UWA in February 2019 for collecting wood in the park. In July 2019, a man named Cherop Samwas shot and killed by the UWA for scaring away wildlife with his motorcycle. In October 2023, three residents of nearby villages were shot by UWA rangers for allegedly trespassing and grazing animals inside the park. In June 2024, Markos Kipsang, a 15-year-old high school student was allegedly shot dead by UWA rangers while cutting grass for his family’s livestock.
The health care and education system within the resettled communities of the Benet are inadequately resourced and supported by the Ugandan Government. Health centers within the Benet resettlement area, such as Terenboi and Kwosir, do not meet health and safety standards and access to medication remains highly limited. In areas where the Benet were placed in temporary resettlement, the Indigenous Benet had to travel for kilometers to access one health center. As a result, many pregnant mothers must use traditional birth attendants within the resettlement zones or give birth by the roadside as they struggle to reach the center.
Uganda Land Alliance v, Uganda Wildlife Authority 2004
Uganda Land Alliance filed a legal suit on behalf of Benet community members, requesting that the Benets' land use rights be enforced by the courts so that the community could remain on their ancestral lands. The UWA also petitioned for the urgent provision of affirmative development action by the Ugandan Government to support the Benet community. The courts granted the Benets both of these demands, recognizing the problems that resettlement programs had created in the past as an ongoing denial of basic human rights. However, the community still has not seen the realization of this positive ruling, and park rangers have continued to disobey the orders of the court.[1]
Muhindo & Others v. Attorney General 2019
Five applicants filed this case in 2016, seeking a declaration that the lack of adequate procedures governing evictions violates the rights to life, dignity, and property under articles 22, 24, and 26 of the Ugandan Constitution, as well as state obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The applicants also sought an order compelling the Government to develop comprehensive guidelines to govern land evictions. The High Court of Uganda found that the Ugandan Government’s failure to enact a comprehensive legal framework and procedure protecting those facing eviction to be a breach of the rights to life, dignity, and property under Articles 22, 24, 26, 27, and 45 of the 1995 Constitution of Uganda. The Court ordered the government to formulate eviction guidelines on an expedited basis, noting that even when evictions are inevitable, it is necessary to ensure that they are human rights compliant.[2]
[2] https://ulii.org/akn/ug/judgment/ughccd/2019/3/eng@2019-01-25
Constitution of Uganda 1995
Uganda Wildlife Act 2000
National Environment Act 2000
Local Government Act 1997
Land Act 1998
Forest and Tree Planting Act 2003
Uganda Wildlife Policy 1999
(All laws and case laws in Uganda can be accessed through the search engine www.ulii.org
The Benet of Uganda remain landless in resettlement zones at the fringes of Mt. Elgon National Park, excluded from the lands of which they lay ancestral claim. UWA park rangers continue to deny the community access as they enforce fortress conservation under the Uganda Wildlife Act. Their plight is well understood by the Government and the Ugandan courts have recognized the land rights of the Benet people in recent decisions. For instance, the National Land Policy of 2013 recognizes that pastoral communities have been disadvantaged through the loss of land rights to conservation projects, mainly national parks. This has led to landlessness where the privatization of communal grazing land has forced pastoral communities to use other communities’ lands resulting in tensions and conflicts. In 2021 in the run-up to the general election, Ugandan politicians promised to address land injustices and resettle the landless but this has proven to be nothing more than an empty campaign promise as there have been no tangible efforts to redress this issue at a policy level.