The Encroaching Forest: Struggles Over Land and Resources on the Boundary of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda

The expansion of outside, particularly state, control into rural areas through policies
designed to protect and serve endangered wildlife has found increasing significance
within studies on human–wildlife conflicts. This article expands the scope of these
investigations by forwarding a case study from Bwindi Impenetrable National Park,
in southwest Uganda, of a thriving protected area whose continued success has
necessitated its expansion into privately owned land. I argue that such encroachment
represents a new form of control, namely, through the dispossession of private property via conservation policies that not only restrict rural farmers from responding to incidents of crop raiding but also prevent local communities from accessing their own land