The World Bank/WBI’s CBNRM Initiative

Case Received: February 2, 1998

Author: Eliot Masters

Tel: +256-41 543-562

Fax: +256-41-543-565,

Email:eliot@covol.org

The Shea Project for Local Conservation and Development (The Shea Project) is an integrated, long-term effort to reinforce the economic utility of the shea-butter tree Vitellaria paradoxa ssp. nilotica.

The primary goal of the Shea Project is to prevent environmental degradation within the project area before it occurs, preserving the ecological integrity of an economically marginal area through sustainable management of communally-held indigenous woodland resources.

The pilot phase of the Shea Project focused on the farming communities of rural Otuke County, Lira District, northern Uganda, a peripheral and underserved area where security is a periodic issue.

A major focus of the Shea Project is the economic significance of non-wood products of savanna woodland, including the traditional food oil and international cosmetic ingredient shea-butter, a product of the tree Vitellaria paradoxa ssp. nilotica. The economy of shea products is fundamentally linked to female incomes and household food security.

Under conditions of social and economic flux, the current cultural focus on short-term gains has undermined the productive value of the living shea tree, resulting in cutting of Vitellaria woodland to provide charcoal to the urban and peri-urban centers.

The author of this case study researched, designed, and implemented the pilot phase of the Shea Project as Coordinator, from 1990-97. He is currently working as a consultant to USAID on issues of local and regional reconstruction in northern Uganda.

Change in northern Uganda has often been violent in nature, with cross-border implications rife between the area and southern Sudan. Internal security has also been an issue in northern Uganda. During a five year period from 1985, for instance, over 90% of the cattle had been taken from Lira District alone in a series of violent and massive raids. Within a few years, a local economy based on cattle had shifted dramatically, with tree products (particularly illegal charcoal production for the urban and peri-urban centers) assuming a much greater role in the local economy.

The dichotomy between destructive and non-destructive use of the shea-butter tree is central to the question of woodland conservation in the project area, as in all Vitellaria parkland savanna. The difficult work required in traditional processing of shea-butter has served as a disincentive for conservation, and the current cultural focus on short-term gains has resulted in massive cutting of Vitellaria for fuel, for curing tobacco, for construction - even for lime-burning - but mostly for the production of charcoal.

Local conservation of the tree is a direct reflection of its economic utility to local communities. With increasing pressures on savanna woodland, however, the decline of Vitellaria woodland is marked. Given its long time to maturity (some 15 to 20 years), cutting of Vitellaria woodland is very likely result in its extinction from any given area. Examples of this are evident in many parts of northern Uganda.

Land tenure is changing in northern Uganda. Though land has traditionally been controlled by local clans, private ownership of land is a recent introduction, with uncertain implications for the ecological integrity of the Vitellaria savanna woodland. There is some evidence, however, that public lands are impacted far more severely than privately held land (viz. forest and road reserves where charcoal is openly burnt and trees are cut for fuel and construction). One forest reserve within the project area is clearly visible on SPOT satellite imagery, on which it appears as a barren spot surrounded by healthy woodland mosaic under cultivation.

It is evident that social pressures within the clan system are not sufficient to ensure conservation of Vitellaria savanna woodland. Though cutting of Vitellaria has been illegal in Uganda since 1958, enforcement has been left to community leadership (i.e. to the clans), and has been insignificant. While no Vitellaria woodland is officially protected by any national park or forest reserve, illegal felling of the tree for charcoal is seriously impacting regeneration of indigenous Vitellaria woodland in many areas.

Present economic trends make the effective management of officially €protected€ lands unlikely; thus, the effective conservation of indigenous savanna woodland must be negotiated and sustained on the basis of local initiatives, and local economies. In areas where this has not been done, Vitellaria woodland is under severe ecological pressure.

In summary, issues of equity under changing conditions of tenure and land-use tend to influence natural resource management decisions toward short-term gains, with no regard for sustainability, and little accountability at the local level. Sustainable solutions to issues of resource management must be based on meaningful and locally appropriate economic incentives - including improved technology and expanded access to new markets.

The Shea Project involves long-term conservation of savanna woodland in the project area through a strategy of local participation and institution-building based on economic incentives. One of the main objectives of the project is to increase the productivity of women farmers by reducing demands on female time and labor involved in the production and processing of shea-butter, the primary source of income - and household food security - for the women farmers of much of northern and eastern Uganda

COVOL Uganda began its work in Otuke County, Lira District in 1992, with a revolving credit program. Technological research on traditional and improved shea processing and design of the Shea Project pilot phase also began at this time, though the pilot phase did not receive funding from USAID until July of 1995, when the 2-year pilot phase of the Shea Project for Local Conservation and Development began.

Under the Shea Project, locally appropriate technology has been developed and introduced to drastically reduce labor inputs to shea-butter extraction, while reducing environmental impacts and improving product quality as well. New markets for shea products are being developed in partnership with a recently-formed producers association known as NUSPA - the Northern Uganda Shea Processors Association.

Over 1500 farmers of northern Uganda have participated in Shea Project since 1992. Project activities have included technology diffusion and product marketing, tree nursery management, and a revolving credit program for members of participating community groups, totaling $30,000 over two years, with a repayment rate of over 99%.

While members cannot usually be categorized as ‘poorest of the poor", they represent a broad cross-section of rural society in an economically marginal region. Shea Project activities have directly benefited over 1500 households in terms of economic and food security. Through NUSPA, new markets are being established for an expanded range of shea products, including a line of high quality cosmetic grade shea-butter for export.

Interventions initiated under the Shea Project are sustained by established and well-organized local community-based organizations - primarily women€s farming groups, which number over 50 in Otuke County alone. Ranging in size from about 12 to over 100 members, the groups are predominantly female in composition, with a members of all age groups represented.

Vitellaria woodland represents an extensive and very valuable resource for millions of subsistence farmers. Results of the pilot phase of the Shea Project indicate that development of local industries for an expanded range of shea products can serve a direct incentive for conservation of indigenous woodland in the Vitellaria savanna zone of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Under conditions of changing land tenure, suitable and timely interventions of very modest cost can tip the balance of land-use decisions in favor of longer-term solutions which promote sustainable management of local woodland resources.

The Shea Project is nearly unique in that it is a low-cost integrated conservation and development project that actually works, generating substantial benefits to a rural population through interventions which are inherently self-sustaining, based on latent and local economic potentials.

The Shea Project is compelling in that its interventions have engendered conservation of savanna woodland in northern and eastern Uganda by increasing the productivity of women farmers and accessing new markets for value-added shea products, building on the link between ecological integrity and household economic and food security through the non-destructive utilization an abundant natural resource.

The zone in which the Shea Project may be replicated is relatively large, extending across most of northern and eastern Uganda, as well as a vast swath of southern Sudan. Even in other parts of central and western Africa, where an export market for shea-nut is well established, there is great potential for the technological innovations developed by the Shea Project.

During 1998, COVOL will expand the Shea Project across an expanded area including seven counties over four districts of northern Uganda, with collaboration in the three additional districts of West Nile. In southern Sudan, COVOL may develop direct involvement to supplement the efforts of collaborating organizations. It is foreseen that under peaceful conditions, it may take 10 years or more to extend Shea Project interventions throughout suitable areas of Uganda and Sudan.