Contribution short abstract

This study examines how conservation in Uganda marginalizes the Batwa, whose landlessness and unresolved claims reveal deep policy contradictions. Drawing on political ecology, it highlights Indigenous knowledge and Buntu Bulamu as pathways toward just, inclusive conservation.

Contribution long abstract

This paper examines the intersections of conservation, Indigenous land rights, and climate politics through the lived experiences of the Batwa of Southwestern Uganda. While conservation imaginaries in Uganda often invoke promises of inclusion, ecological protection, and formalized land rights, the Batwa’s reality starkly diverges from these narratives. Evicted from their ancestral forests in 1991 without consultation or compensation, the Batwa remain landless, marginalized, and structurally excluded from the very conservation frameworks that claim to safeguard both people and nature. Their displacement—legally justified through state definitions of forest land as “public land”—reveals how national agendas and tenure regimes reproduce dispossession rather than protection.

Drawing on political ecology and ethnographic fieldwork, this study analyzes how legal processes and institutional timelines have prolonged Batwa precarity. Despite winning a landmark case against the Ugandan government, subsequent state appeals have left their land claims unresolved since 2003. This prolonged legal limbo illustrates how fragmented landscapes and weak institutional commitments shape everyday experiences of exclusion.

In engaging the conference’s core questions, the paper highlights Indigenous critiques of conservation’s lofty narratives, exposes the contradictions embedded within national tenure frameworks, and foregrounds pathways for more just governance. Particular attention is given to Indigenous-led alternatives—such as Buntu Bulamu, a Ugandan articulation of Ubuntu—that emphasize relationality, reciprocity, and collective stewardship. These approaches, rooted in Indigenous knowledge and self-determination, culturally meaningful models for re-imagining conservation in the climate crisis. Ultimately, the study advocates for governance frameworks that not only recognize but are reshaped by Indigenous authority, land rights, and ecological worldviews.