Sustainable mountain development in East Africa in a changing climate

addressmountainissues:WaterResourceManagement Proclamation (No. 197/2000); Establishment of Environmental Protection Organs Proclamation (no. 295/2002); Biodiversity Conservation Proclamation (No. 381/2004); Environmental Impact Assessment Proclamation (No. 299/2002). In Eritrea, at present there is no formal environmental legislation or legislation specifically relating to mountains. The legislation that directly addresses the environment includes the Eritrea Biosafety Act. It should be noted, however, that in 2001 Eritrea submitted a National Communication to the UNFCCC which provides an indication of ongoing efforts to address climate change and other environmental issues, some of which relate to sustainable development in mountain areas (GOE, 2001). In many of the countries in East Africa, governance is either decentralized or semi-decentralized (EAC, 2006). Governance of natural resources and sustainable mountain development is normally the responsibility of local government structures. At the subnational level, elements of national programmes are implemented based on their relevance to each specific region or district. In a few cases, some programmes may be developed and implemented by subnational governance structures themselves. Data and information at these levels, however, remains scarce and can only be obtained through national programmes. Decentralization is meant to strengthen access to services for local communities. Experiences across East Africa indicate a mixture of success and failure. Approachestolocalgovernancedifferamongcountries. Governance in Tanzania, for example, is based on a regional system, which is further decentralized to the district level; this creates layers of bureaucracy which may delay service delivery. In Uganda, on the other

Drummers and dancers in Gitega, Burundi

allocating revenue from tourism to local communities. This mechanism needs to be harmonized across the subregion. Currently, inUganda, 20 per cent of the total gate fees from all national parks go towards supporting local communities; except in the Mghahinga Gorilla National Park and the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park which includes an additional supplement of 5 per cent of all gorilla permit fees. In Rwanda 5 per cent of all tourism revenue is allocated to local communities while in the DRC such a policy has not yet been developed due to the political insecurity in the country. An evaluation of policies and institutional frameworks in the region clearly indicates that, at present, there are adequate policy and institutional frameworks to enable the effective implementation of programmes for sustainable mountain development. However, climate change policies do not specifically

focus on mountains in particular (EAC 2011), even up to the present, and therefore there is need to pragmatically integrate issues of climate change adaptation and resilience. There is an urgent need for review and harmonization of policies and institutional frameworks to make the mountain development agenda more relevant to the changing climatic conditions. In Ethiopia, both environmental policies and laws exist (EPA, 1997; 2012). However, few policies contain specific sections on mountains. For example, within the environmental policy there are sections that concern the sustainable management of resources in the highlands, particularly soil erosion and general land management. Similarly, Ethiopian environmental laws contain proclamations on environmental management with some sections which can be used to

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