A succesful field campaign in the Mt. Elgon Biosphere Reserve, Uganda (August-October 2017)

Koen Vanderhaegen, Katrien Geussens and Sanne Baeten, PhD and bioengineer students of KU Leuven, came back to Belgium after a successful field campaign in Uganda. Together with the MSc thesis students Zerubabeeli Naturinda and Mary Awory Immaculate from Busitema University, they carried out interviews with key informants, group discussions and surveys in the Mt. Elgon Biosphere reserve. While Koen piloted rapid scoping tools for Ecosystem Services, Sanne analyzed an existing payments for ecosystem services (PES) scheme on carbon managed by ECOTrust and Katrien assessed the willingness of farmers to get involved in a local PES scheme on watershed services. Zerubabeeli and Mary on the other hand, scoped for the economic value attributed to priority ecosystem services by the local communities. This research was conducted in the framework of the EVAMAB project and will also be included in K. Vanderhaegen’s PhD and the students’ master theses.