PAWAR in Budongo and Bugoma Forest Reserves

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Objectives

  • To satisfy the overaching goal of the Woods Hole Research Center and its collaborators with repsect to the PAWAR project in general and the Budongo and Bugoma Forest Reserves in particular: to allow better management of the Albertine Rift's network of protected areas by identifying the location of active deforestation, as well as by aiding predictinos of potential future threats.
  • Work with collaborators at the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) to develop detailed satellite imagery of the area that can be used by managers to monitor and assess the state of forests and the fauna that reside therein.
  • Use remote sensing-based models to aid in the develoment of a wildlife corridor that will effectively link the Budongo and Bugoma Forest Reserves. creating a migration pathway between protected sites.

Products

  • Mosaics of georeferenced remotely-sensed Landsat and Aster imagery depicting the Forest Reserves and surrounding landscape
  • A land cover classification of the Budongo and Bugoma Forest Reserves and the surrounding region that classifies both the remaining native landscape and agricultural land in to detailed vegetation classes
  • Forest change analyses focusing on the two Forest Reserves comparing forest cover as derived from Landsat images takein in 1987 and 2002. The remote-sensing based change analysis is able to distinguish between areas of mature forest, forest loss, and tracts of forest that are either degraded or in the process of regenerating.
  • Analysis showing least-cost migration corridors between Budongo and Bugoma for chimpanzee populations

A landcover map derived from the Uganda Forest Department's National Biomass Study, which was conducted between 1995 and 2002. Note the relative lack of forest in the area between Budongo (to the north) and Bugoma (to the south); this is the area now targeted for habitat restoration in order to make it a viable migration corridor for chimpanzees and other fauna.

A forest change analysis conducted for the Budongo (on the left) and Bugoma Forest Reserves. The analysis was performed by classifying land cover from Landsat images collected in 1986 and 2002; the results of this classification were then compared and presented visually.

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