| Abstract: | Abstract East African forests have been largely converted to agriculture. The remaining forests hold many endangered species but are threatened by the heavy local demand for fuelwood. Here we evaluate fallow land in western Uganda as an alternate fuel source to diverse forests. We quantify the regeneration process on fallows, calculate tree bio-mass increases, and measure grass and woody herb biomass over 44 months. The biomass values we measured were typical or slightly below the average from 11 studies elsewhere in the tropics. Variation in biomass between our neighboring study sites exceeded that between sites on different continents, indicating the sensitivity of vegetation regeneration to local land use. Tree regeneration was extremely slow (0.46 g/m2/year); however, the woody herbs and grasses on a 4 year old fallow of ～0.5 ha can provide much of a family's domestic fuel. Fallow land is generally abundant in western Uganda and can partially alleviate pressure on forests for domestic fuels. Fallows cannot however provide the trees demanded by charcoal, brick, and gin manufacturers. In the future, conserving forests while meeting fuelwood demands will require improving local land tenure security, enhancing the productivity of cultivated and abandoned land, promoting more efficient stoves, stills and kilns, and curtailing illicit, inefficient charcoal manufacture. |
