Governance and Management of Farming Landuse Practices in Rwanda: Case Study of Mukimira Sector

Abstract

Poor land use practices have negative effects on environment and food security because they degrade land resources.Despite Rwanda having policies and laws to regulate landuse farming practices it has been observed that farming activities have continued to cause land degradation over the years. The observed trend has been worrying and warranted a study to unravel the governance and management root causes of the same in order to put in place sustainable interventions.This study aimed to use the case study of Mukamira Sector to understand how existing regulatory legal and institutional frameworks for land use farming practices are currently interplaying with the actors to create sustainable management of land resources. The study took into account representative sampling of administrative units, referred to as Cells in Rwanda by treating the farming household as the primary sampling unit. Every fifth household along the walking transect of the Cell was sampled. Questionnaires were used to interview household heads and key informants. A Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) method was used to collect data on trends of land use practices and observed land use changes. Secondary data was obtained through review of relevant literature and documentation to obtain data on existing laws, policies and regulations. Quantitative and qualitative data was obtained. Quantitative datawas analyzed and presented as frequencies and percentages charts, graphs and tables. Qualitative data was analyzed thematically and presented as ranked perceptions. Multinomial Regression, Chi-square and Student-T tests statistics were used where applicable to deduce significance of the presented results. Majority (over90%) of the respondents engaged in farming activities that were significantly influenced by local leaders (p<0.05). Governance instruments and institutionalframeworkforregulationoflandusepracticesexistedinRwanda.ThePRAresults indicatedlanddegradationhasoccurredoverthelastfiveyears.Farmersadmittedtobepartof the contributory cause of the occurred land use change through their farming activities while also blaming other causes like socioeconomic, political and cultural traditions. It reported that...............