The political ecology of compensation: Power and inequality in Bwindi's human–wildlife conflicts

Protected area governance has evolved from exclusionary fortress conservation toward participatory approaches, yet historical patterns of Indigenous displacement continue shaping present-day human-wildlife conflicts. Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable National Park exemplifies this tension: while mountain gorilla recovery represents a celebrated conservation success, expanding wildlife populations intensify conflicts with adjacent communities bearing disproportionate costs. This paper examines how Uganda's Wildlife Compensation Scheme shapes relationships between communities and conservation institutions at Bwindi, asking whether the scheme delivers on its justice objectives. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork with Bakiga and Batwa communities and integrating political ecology with environmental justice frameworks, the study traces how the conservation legacy that produced human-wildlife conflict shapes the scheme's institutional barriers and, in turn, the deterioration of community-park relationships. The findings show that the scheme's limitations are not implementation failures, but structurally inherited features of a colonial governance architecture reproduced through institutional stickiness. Baboon exclusion from eligibility reflects a state valuation logic organised around conservation value rather than community harm, while verification procedures systematically disadvantage the most exposed households. Bakiga and Batwa communities hold structurally distinct justice claims that the scheme calibrations cannot register. In that sense, the scheme performs justice without redistributing power, deepening resignation rather than repairing the community-park relationship.