Wild resource use and users.

Baseline surveys were carried out in the three main study sites. The surveys covered basic socio-economic parameters such as wealth, i.e. land and livestock holdings; ethnicity; main sources o f livelihood and overall use o f forest resources.

Repeated forest use surveys were carried out at Lpartuk and Ngorika in March 1994, May/June 1994, July/August 1994, October 1994 and January 1995. Fifteen

households from each village were selected on the basis o f wealth rank from those interviewed in the baseline surveys and visited each day for a week on each of the periods shown above. Each day a person from the household (nearly always the woman o f the household) was shown a number o f picture cards depicting different categories o f wild resource use, e.g. grazing o f cattle or smallstock, collection o f firewood or poles for construction, hunting and wild honey gathering, and asked which activities they or any other member o f the household had done since the visit the previous day. For each activity they were asked which species was used, whether the resource was for home use or for sale, where the resource had come from - the vegetation type (forest/bush/shrub/grassland) and whether the land was communal or gazetted - and which member o f the household had gone for the resource. These surveys provided data on the frequency with which different resource use categories occurred throughout the year, the diversity o f species actually used, seasonal variation in use and the main sources o f wild resources in terms o f habitat type.

The use o f pictures made the interviews more interesting for the respondents, but more importantly reduced bias associated with long lists, made the interview quicker and assisted the respondent in recalling his/her activities (Figure 2-10).

(a) Aerial photographs blown up to a scale o f 1:10,000 w ere used to identity areas o f difterent grazing pressure within Saanata forest; and

(b) Pictures displaying different wild resource activities were used to during the multi­ round surveys.

Figure 2-10 Photographs showing the use o f photographs and pictures in the course o f the study

2.4.4 Cattle as forest users

In the course o f the baseline survey, households were asked to rank the im portance o f closed canopy forest for each o f the resource categories carried out by that household. Resource categories included cattle and sm allstock grazing and brow sing, collection

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o f fodder for livestock and w ater for livestock. This show ed the im portance o f the forest as a source o f livestock fodder and w ater in relation to other activities.

A livestock census around Saanata w as carried out at the height o f the dry season in January 1994 to quantify the num ber o f cattle currently using the forest as a dry season refuge. The num ber o f cattle using each w ater hole in the area w as observed and recorded for two consecutive days. The herders were asked w hether they had taken their cattle for w ater the previous day (thereby avoiding double counting), where the cattle were from and w hether they were currently taking their cattle into the forest for grazing.

System atic observation o f livestock feeding behaviour was carried out for herds o f cattle in Saanata in January and April 1994 to establish habitat selection and feeding preferences w ithin the forest by cattle. A focal anim al was selected for observation and follow ed throughout the day from the m om ent it entered the forest until it left in the evening. At intervals o f 3 m inutes, the anim al's activity was recorded as walking, standing or eating. If the anim al was eating, the species being eaten was recorded where possible. O therw ise, the plant type was recorded, categorised as: grass; herb; shrub; or tree. Im m ediately afterw ards the activity o f the nearest anim al was also m onitored in the same way. H abitat use in term s o f overall vegetation type was recorded every 20 m inutes as: closed forest; open forest; closed scrub; open scrub; forest glade; forest edge.

Faecal counts were carried out along the two transects at Lorubai and Sordon in Saanata in Septem ber 1993, January 1994, April 1994, and January 1995 to com pare relative densities o f cattle and other herbivore in areas under different levels o f use by cattle. Total faecal counts provided a m easure o f changing frequencies throughout the year and the effects o f livestock presence on the distribution o f w ildlife populations.

Finally, elders from different age groups were interviewed on livestock management and forest grazing during their moranhood. These interviews spanned a period from around 1915 (the elder was a member o f the Lmaricho age group, circumcised

between 1912 and 1923) to the present day. Regulations with respect to forest grazing were described and the distance travelled into the forest during the different periods mapped using enlarged aerial photographs o f the forest.