FMPs are necessary primarily for purposes of the efficient management of FMU. The FMUs may cover one forestland unit (e.g. a single FR or forest owned by one person), or a number of forestland units in a given geographical or administrative area (e.g. a number of forests in a given water catchment area, or combining a number of districts).
FMPs contain information that enable the user to take informed day to day management decisions, and prescriptions that must be used in preparing periodic work plans for the FMU. To this extent, FMPs act as repositories for all information relating to the specific FMU so that future revisions are based on recorded information.
The law relating to forest management plans is mainly rooted in the Forestry Act as follows:
• Section 28, Sub-section (1), of the Forestry Act obligates every RB to prepare an FMP
• Regulation 7 provides for creation of FMUs (called forest management areas in the law)
• Regulation 6 of the Forestry Regulations outlines procedures for preparing and approving of FMPs
• Section 28, Sub-section 3, of the Forestry Act confers the power to approve an FMP to the Minister, or “by a person designated by the Minister for that purpose”.
• In Regulation 6, Sub-regulation 4, the Minister has conferred powers to approve FMP for CFRs to the Board of Directors of NFA, and the District Councils for LFRs.
Instruction 340: While all RBs may develop planning procedure manuals tailored to their specific mandate and circumstances, here-under are core elements for developing FMPs for FRs, which all FMIs should take into consideration.
(i) The content of FMPs, is based on Principle 7 of Uganda’s NFSS, and as outlined in Annex E (i) of the NFSS. As the FMP represents the best information and advice that is available at any one-time, substantial deviations from its prescriptions are not permitted without the permission of the Head of the respective RB. However, the prescriptions shall be kept under constant review by the FPs and other interested parties so that they are amended in the light of new information or new objects of management. The amendments shall be temporarily inserted sequentially at the front of the FMP copies at Headquarters and the FMU Records, and fully incorporated into the FMP when it is due for review. Schedules shall be included in the Forest Management Information System (FMIS) to automatically trigger rewriting the FMP before its expiry when amendments become too many.
(ii) FPs initiate the writing and revisions of FMPs in their areas of jurisdiction, and keep rosters of the FMP revisions. To this end the FP submits a Preliminary FMP Report (normally not exceeding 10 pages) to the Head of the FMI for approval. The report shall indicate:
• Area to be covered by the FMP
• A summary of the main proposals for management
• A sketch map of the FMU
• A procedure for preparing the FMP adapted from the NFA Guideline for Development of Forest Management Plans and the Uganda Catchment Management Planning Guidelines (2014)
• The associated budget
The structure of the FMP is shown in Annex 19.
(iii) Upon getting the consent of the FMI Head, the FP proceeds to prepare the draft FMP and again submits it to the FMI Headquarters, where:
• The FMI Head circulates the draft among Head Office staff for comments to improve the draft
• The improved draft is then circulated for comments by stakeholders who are external to the organisation
• After incorporating the stakeholder comments, the draft final FMP is then submitted to the approving authority in line with Regulation 6 (4) of the Forestry Regulations
Instruction 341: Where the resources for collecting empirical information are inadequate, best available information[1] is used, taking into account, the precautionary approach (Box 6).
Box 6: The Precautionary Principle
Precautionary approach
An approach requiring that when the best available information indicates that management activities will pose a threat of severe or irreversible damage to the environment or a threat to human welfare, the organization will take explicit and effective measures to prevent the damage and avoid the risks to welfare, even when the scientific information is incomplete or inconclusive, and when the vulnerability and sensitivity of environmental values are uncertain.
Source: FSC National Forest Stewardship Standard of the Republic of Uganda, 2018
Instruction 342: For each MPA, the following minimum records shall be maintained, whether formal FMPs have been approved or not:
(i) Current Records – to be kept on any new or additional information occurring during the year.
(ii)Costing Sheets – to be maintained for each standard costing head or compartment and entered up monthly.
(iii)Compartment History Record Sheets (Section 3.4) – to be maintained for each compartment and updated every time an operation is carried out there.
(iv)Rainfall Records
(v)Annual Records:
• Equipment Inventory
• Annual Summary - Direct Charges
• Annual Summary of Overheads
• Annual Summary of Revenue and Expenditure with Overheads
• Record of deviations from the plan.
Instruction 343: All FMPs shall have a locality map to indicate the position of the areas under the plan. This shall, where possible, also be of A4 size and never more than A3 size to permit binding with the FMP.
Instruction 344: All FMPs shall have a Management Map on a suitable scale obtained from Headquarters, and on public display. The map shall be updated at the end of specific operating season (e.g. planting, harvesting, thinning, etc.). The FMI Headquarters shall issue templates to enable field staff to submit the relevant information for preparation of such maps
Instruction 345: Copies of FMPs shall be maintained as record (master) copies at the Field Office of the FMI, the Head Office, and the relevant libraries.
Instruction 346: The field copy shall always be available for entry of “comment slips” by the supervising officials of the FMIs who visit the FMU for monitoring inspections. FPs in charge of operations must be familiar with the provisions of the FMP. Copies of forms and comment slips shall be sent to the Head of the RB at least 30 days before the close of the institution’s financial year (i.e., by 31st May for government FMIs).
Instruction 347: The FMPs shall be placed on the FMI website and incorporated in the institution’s FMIS database and the National Forest Management Information System (NFMIS).
Instruction 348: Where the NFSS is used for evaluation of RFM of a FMU, the content of Principle 7 of the NFSS shall be taken into account in the process of preparing the FMP. Accordingly:
(i) During orientation of new FPs, the FMP process and NFSS shall be included in the training/ orientation exercise
(ii) Each working circle[2] in FMP shall, to the extent possible, have indicators as given in the NFSS.
Data, facts, documents, expert opinions, and results of field surveys or consultations with stakeholders that are most credible, accurate, complete, and/or pertinent and that can be obtained through reasonable effort and cost ↩︎
An area organized with a particular objective and under one silvicultural system and one set of working plan prescriptions ↩︎