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Commercial tea plantations (above) can be a virtual avian desert compared with smaller scale agriculture which has greater structure, more diverse cropping and tall trees (below). |
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In April 2005, BTO was awarded a grant by the Darwin Initiative to investigate this problem, determine how the changes in farming will impact on birds, invertebrates and/or plants and devise methods of mitigating some of these negative effects.
The project has been up and running since August 2005 and is set to run until December 2008. Two PhD students, Theodore Munyuli and Dianah Nalwanga-Wabwire and two research assistants, Maurice Mutabazi and Raymond Katebaka, were appointed. They are be based at the Makerere University Institute of Environment and Natural Resources and will undertake reseach into the birds and pollinators. David Mushabe, at NatureUganda, in undertaking a Masters degree and is responsible for mapping land use and undertaking socio-economic surveys. Olivia Nantaba, Uganda Wildlife Society, is leading on the dissemination aspects of the project including the production of a handbook for agricultural extension workers.
The project staff are undertaking research in 26 sites in the banana-coffee arc of Lake Victoria. Each site is aproximately one square kilometre and covers a range of agricultural intensity.
Over a 12 month period in 2006 & 2007 five visits were made to each site. At each site, invertebrates were surveyed using pan traps, direct observation and traps baited with fruit. Birds were also surveyed using point counts and ten minute counts along a transect. Land use was also surveyed and a socio-economic survey carried out.
Other field work will complement this set of baseline data. Pollination experiments in coffee determine whether particular habitat features increase the pollination success (and thus yields to the farmer).
These data are being are being brought together to identify the main relationships between biodiversity and features of the farmed landscape and also place an economic value on biodiversity. They can also be used to answer important questions such as the shape of the relationship between yield and components of bioversity and whether it is better to land spare or land share(i.e. set aside land for biodiversity conservation and farm the remainder intensively, or whether to maintain biodiversity in the farmed landscapes.