Contribution of biodiversity and ecosystem services protection on household and national economies :

Abstract

A study was conducted to examine the contribution of biodiversity and the protection of ecosystems to the well-being of the people and the national economy at around Mabira foreşt in Buikwe District, central Uganda. Data collection consisted at assessing how people lıving in the forest make use of different biological species and the ecosystem services from the Secondary data was obtained from literature in order to help the researcher understand better the topic. The study was of across sectional type. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were applied to collect and analyze data. Data was collected by conducting interviews using a questionnaire. The data was collected from a sample of 78 respondents. Data was analyzed using STATA (version 8), Excel and Minilab (version 15) while interested in carrying out descriptive statistics of the data The results indicated a high economic value that forest play in form of supporting life of species ranging from animals, birds and man himself. The ecosystem service such as provision of fertility level were valued in terms of output from the agricultural land use by Maize and was estimated to be worth US$ 143360 ha/yr. Hunting as another service was estimated to accounts for US$ 935860ha/yr. The results suggest that there is need to invest in conservation of natural resources given the stream of benefits that underlie the forest and the lives that the forest supports in general. It was concluded that biodiversity and ecosystem services protect have a large contribution to the households as a major source of livelihood and to the national economy at large. It was recommended that adoption of prudent land-uses may help to protect the forest and the ecosystem services. Also, development goals by the government should take care of the sustainability issue with forest conservation in the region. Keywords: Mabira forest, Biodiversity. Ecosystem services, Livelihoods, Valuation, Central Uganda